Flunkies and Loggerettes: Women in the White Pine Forest

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, employers in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho built thousands of small communities. Houses, stores, schools, mines, mills, and factories all went up on company land, for company employees. 

The work force of these towns, including Potlatch, were male-dominated and made up of a mix of skilled craftsmen and laborers, experienced managers and professionals, as well as transients. 

The men working for Potlatch Forests, Inc. held jobs that ranged from sawmill or box factory manager to laborers in lumber camps in the surrounding rural areas. 

The women in Potlatch, on the other hand, spent their time in much different ways. A lot of women in Potlatch rarely worked outside of the home since there were very few opportunities for them in the mill, and there were few other employers in town. Because of this, most of the women in Potlatch were homemakers and child raisers. 

Women who worked outside of the home might have had opportunities at the mercantile or on the company clerical staff. A very small number were nurses, maids, boardinghouse cooks, waitresses, or post office workers. Outside of Potlatch, though, a number of women found work as flunkies in the lumber camps all throughout the Palouse. 

Often, conditions in the camps were very primitive. In early camps, living quarters and mess halls were simple log cabins and later, the better-constructed Marion shack became the building of choice in camps.  

The people in these logging camps were typically men who worked in logging all their lives. Many of them had families that they would move from camp to camp with them as their work sites changed. During the first generation of these camps, many women were employed as flunkies, working in the camp kitchens and assisting cooks with descriptive names like Greasy Pete Carman, Sourdough Smith, and Cold Ham Snyder, to name a few. 

Given the scarce nature of photos documenting the work women did in logging camps, photos like these are invaluable in learning what it was like as a woman working in a camp. 

It was the role of flunkies to assist in preparing and serving enormous hot meals to hundreds of lumbermen at a time, all without the amenities used today in modern cooking. Because their work fueled the men working, it was a smart investment for the company to hire skilled and attentive cooks and flunkies. 

Flunkies did prep work for the cook, waited tables, fired wood stoves, and handled clean up after meals. They would also prepare lunch buckets for the men to take with them off into the woods.  

During the first World War, women's duties expanded from serving food and making match boxes to include logging duties, work in the box factories, and even positions in the large sawmills. These women became known as "loggerettes" as they started taking over work that had traditionally been done by men. 

A 1942 article from the Potlatch Forests, Inc. company newspaper, The Family Tree, discusses the integration of women into jobs left vacant by men called away by the wars:

"A generation ago freckled girls with pink straw bonnets worked in the logging camp kitchens, and others, equally comely, made lumber into ammunition boxes. It is a matter of record that during World War I, women were employed in logging camps, in box factories, and for lighter tasks in sawmills. The men had gone to war.

The story repeats itself today. The men again are going to war. Women again are replacing men in industry. Everyone regards the change without disfavor for they rightly construe the employment of women to be natural and inevitable. Women are now employed as waitresses in all the company logging camps except the isolated ones along the river. A few are also employed in the box factory at Lewiston. 

The introduction of loggerettes as waitresses in the logging amps was made without a hitch. Some of the lumberjax felt uneasy for a day or two and toyed with their food instead of wolfing it the way a logger should. But as the stage fright passed, their appetites returned to normal and the consumption of food in the cookhouses is again at high level. 

Nor were any alarming symptoms noted in Lewiston when women were hired in the box factory. Men who had doubts about the modern woman being a good worker were speedily enlightened. It possibly can be conceded that machines, gears, belts, and pulleys are more mysterious to women that to men. But there is no proof that skills cannot be acquired by women as well as men. After all, men are not as superior as they try to make their wives believe. How many men know how to bake biscuits?--soft, fluffy biscuits, not the kind that bounce."

The roughly 40 women working in the Potlatch mill during World War II were featured on the front page of a December 1942 issue of Moscow newspaper The Daily Idahonian. "Paul Bunyan's Spouse Makes Good Mill Hand, Potlatch Finds," reads the title, followed by several photographs of women working various pieces of mill machinery. 

The images above show the following women going about their work, clockwise starting from the top left: Ramona Anderson and Helen Burden stacking Pres-to-logs hot off the big machine; Louise white sorting lumber in the re-manufacturing plant while another worker, Mrs. L.M. Tribble, stands in the background; Louise White and plant office janitor, Timsy Poston, visitng during an afternoon rest period in the rest room provided for women employees; Audrey Stewart punching buttons in her crows nest high above the mill floor to control the chains leading to gang saws; and a Mrs. Paul Tobin, whose husband was yard superintendent at the mill, operating a timber cut-off saw. 

The accompanying article in The Daily Idahonian lauds the ability of the women working in the mill to do their jobs just as well as—or in some cases, better than—the men they replaced:

"Since last August, the feminine crew has been taking over many jobs on both the day and night shifts in the big lumber mill, and now they are so familiar with their daily tasks that their production often equals that of the men they replaced. In a few cases, where speed and co-ordination are more important than muscle, the women are hanging up new records in proficiency." 

J.J. O'Connell, manager of the Potlatch unit, tells the Daily Idahonian that "it was a matter of necessity when we started training women for work in the sawmill. Our housing facilities were all taken up, so we couldn't import labor even if we wanted to, or could get the men. And we had to operate with two full shifts to meet Uncle Sam's orders for lumber. The women seemed to take naturally to the work and they've done such a splendid job that we're all proud of them." 

The article continues to explain some of the work being done by the women in the mill that day:

Reports describing the introduction and success of women workers in the mills and other parts of the lumber industry in Northern Idaho during both World Wars highlight it as being incredibly successful, but it's likely that the women in these environments experienced some amount of prejudice, intimidation, and/or harassment because of their gender. Still, female workers like those featured in this Daily Idahonian article didn't let that stop them from learning to do the jobs in the sawmill just as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts. At the time this article was written, the mill was on its way to setting a new production record for the last decade, all thanks to the help of women like Dolora Kammeyer, Audrey Stewart, and the others featured here. 

While many women who found jobs at the Potlatch mill and the surrounding logging camps during the war may have wanted to remain in those jobs, they found themselves replaced by returning men after both World War I and World War II. Even though they were forced out, these pioneering women had shown their community that they could do "men's work," which made a huge impact on local perspectives of gender equality. This was one small step forward that, taken with other small steps, helped eventually change perceptions of what women were capable of and secure equality for women in Potlatch.

The narratives surrounding the creation and building of Potlatch and the Potlatch Lumber Company are very saturated with the names and activities of men. Given the societal expectations and opportunities available to women during this time, that isn't all that surprising. However, Potlatch wasn't built by just men, and women have played an integral part in making the town what it was and is today. By looking back and recognizing the hand women played in the success of this former company town, we can also acknowledge their struggles to create a place for themselves in a world full of opportunities that before had only been open to men.