Edith Kent just turned 100 this past year.  Her fondest memories?
Those of being a woman welder in the Plymouth shipyards, where she was the first female to be paid a man’s wage.

Edith Kent, wartime welder and the first woman to receive equal pay, turns 100

Being 4ft 11in paid off for Edith Kent.

Her diminutive stature meant that she could crawl inside torpedo tubes — and helped her to become the first woman in Britain to earn the same wage as her male colleagues while working as a welder during the Second World War.

This week Mrs Kent celebrated her 100th birthday with a tea dance at a hotel with 50 family and friends, including her sister Minna, 105.

Mrs Kent began working at Devonport dockyard in Plymouth in 1941 but was so good that she received wage parity in 1943 — which was unheard of at the time.

Starting on five pounds and six shillings (£5 6s) a week as a skilled female worker, she was soon given a rise to £6 6s. A male manual worker in 1943 would have been on a weekly wage of only £5 8s 6d.

Mrs Kent, who still lives near the dockyard, said she was extremely proud of her signal achievement but she was embarrassed at the time.

She said: “I got the job because my brothers worked at the dockyard and they thought I would be good at it. I was the first woman to work as a welder there. It made me a bit uncomfortable that I was the first woman to earn the same as the men — and in some cases I was earning more than them. All the men I worked with were marvellous and they didn’t seem to mind me earning the same.

“None of them ever dared say it, but I think they knew I was worth as much as them, if not more,” she said. Mrs Kent took time off to have her only child, Jean, in 1942 and then went back to work — leaving the baby with one of her sisters. She worked at the dockyard until 1945 when the male workers returned from war and she left to work as a barmaid.

Mrs Kent’s daughter, Jean, 66, said: “My mother has lived a remarkable life. After I was born she went straight back to work. She was a pioneer of girl power.”

Mrs Kent, who still lives near the dockyard, said she was extremely proud of her signal achievement but she was embarrassed at the time.

She said: “I got the job because my brothers worked at the dockyard and they thought I would be good at it. I was the first woman to work as a welder there.

It made me a bit uncomfortable that I was the first woman to earn the same as the men — and in some cases I was earning more than them. All the men I worked with were marvellous and they didn’t seem to mind me earning the same.

“None of them ever dared say it, but I think they knew I was worth as much as them, if not more,” she said.

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I defy you not to laugh at this video.  Seriously.  This is a short clip about recruiting women to work during WWII from a 1943 propaganda film entitled ”Manpower”.  Some of my favorite quotes were:

“Employers find that women can do many jobs as well as men.  Some jobs, better.”

and

“They discover that factory work is usually no more difficult than housework.”

Take it with a grain of salt, but remember, it just goes to show you how far we have come in the past 60 years!

Robotic welding may be an automated process, but every machine still needs an operator, especially if the “automated” machine needs its parameters to be set.

Robotic pipe welding with a human touch

Keeping the operator involved in the act of automating pipe welding

By Carl Heinrich
September 1, 2009

Automation has emerged as an alternative to manual welding, but these robotic and fixed automation technologies tend to work for specific applications, rather than general pipe fabricating. Automation coupled with the flexibility of a human operator during the welding process, however, represents a new alternative for those companies looking to squeeze more productivity out of the pipe fabricating process.

When it comes to welding pipe, a welder has to be highly skilled and prepared for many variables. No two jobs are exactly alike, even when they are somewhat similar.

The welder has to be skilled enough to perform code-quality, multiple-pass welding and be experienced enough to recognize when the weld joint will require modifications in technique and parameters to achieve success. In some instances, the welder has to be strong enough to work in unusual positions over large and awkward part configurations and be flexible enough to accommodate inconsistent fit-ups and endless varieties of fittings.

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From the Sept. 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics.  Enjoy!

Did you own any action figures when you were a kid?
Superman?  Jedis?  X-Men?

I didn’t, probably because I never read any comic books until my brothers came along.  What we did have though, were real people action figures.

I’m not even kidding.  There’s a company out there called Accoutrements that makes action figures out of historical characters.

There’s Marie Antoinette with a detachable head, Houdini wrapped up in a straight jacket, Van Gogh with a bandage over his ear, and many more –>

I myself am the proud owner of both a Jane Austen and a DaVinci figurine, and they sit on my bookshelf, keeping each other company whilst I am away, or so I like to think…

But, for the purposes of this blog, I would like to introduce you to the action figure of none other than Rosie the Riveter.  That’s right — our very own pseudo-mascot, doll-size — the perfect desk-top inspiration!

She comes with her very own spring-action rivet gun and a lunchbox, just like in the original Norman Rockwell painting.  Plus, she’s posable!