A Letter written on Aug 19, 1917

58 Park Place
Waterbury, Conn.
August 19, 1917.

Dear Miss Turner -

Did you ever expect you would be getting a letter from me, written in Waterbury? I certainly never expected I'd be here to write it, but you never can tell what will happen next! I've been here for two weeks and I expect to stay two more. My title is Scientific Assistant, U.S. Public Health Service. My business is gathering data on Industrial Efficiency and Fatigue at one of the big brass plants where everything from talcum powder cans to time fuses, is made. There are over twelve thousand employed in the plant. It was through Dr. Lee that I came up. Dr. Lee is the Executive secretary of the committee which has charge of the investigation and this committee is a sub-committee of the Council of National Defense. The other members include Captain Darlington M.D.[,] Dr. Martin, of the Physiology department at Leland Stanford, Dr. Edsall of Boston, Dr. Dodge of Wesleyan, Dr. Schereschewsky, who is some high official in the Public Health Service, Dr. Scott of P&S, Wm. T. Sargant Florence, who has spent much time investigating conditions in BritishMunition factories - and Miss Gredwark. The scientific assistants, at present, are seven in number, three medical students from P&S, a graduate student in Botany & me in Psychology - at Columbia all men - and Mrs Wright and I. Mrs Wright arrived just this afternoon, so up to this time I have been the sole woman on the job. Mr. Florence has charge of the work. He comes up every week for a few days to direct our efforts. It is most interesting. So far my duties have been mostly the gathering of statistics from the hospital records and from the time slips which show the daily output of the worker and his day's wages. Now however I am doing some actual observation in the factory on four women, who operate foot presses. They put together the parts of the "carrier" of a Welsbach burner - the metal part that looks something like this [drawing here] [.] Every time one of these is put together, the operator has to press a lever with her foot. They handle over 10000 a day so you see the right pedal extremity is well exercised! I am making a study of their hourly output - keeping track, of course, of time lost for any reason, and of work spoiled. It would be impossible to get these records of course without the help of the foreman of the department and I must say I never saw anyone nicer or more willing to help out a scientific investigation than the foreman of the Welsbach department. All of the people at the plant have been unfailing in their patience and courtesy. Here is the thing that may interest you particularly. We are going to test various muscles for evidences of fatigue - the pectorals, the wrist flexors, the biceps, and the thigh adductors and abductors. The instrument is a spring scale with a leather loop at one end. To test the left pectoral, for instance, the loop is place just above the elbow of the subject. The arm is held close to the body. The operator grasps the opposite end of the scale and pulls till the resistance of the pectoral muscle is overcome and the arm is pulled away from the body. This resistance is registered in pounds. The idea is Dr. Martin's I believe. He has used it at Leland Stanford in experimenting on fatigue and he feels it is reliable. The tests are made in the morning before work and at night after the work is over. The boys have been making the tests on the men for several weeks, and I've been patiently waiting for Mrs Wright to come so that we could begin on the women. The whole thing is perfectly fascinating and I'm very very glad that I decided to undertake the work even though Miss Rinner & Lucile Wheeler thought I was foolish. I'm especially glad now that I have heard that the University of Minnesota does not begin till October 15th, after I leave Waterbury. I'm going to New York to finish my calculations on the metabolism experiment and get the data in shape for Dr. Sherman. You probably saw in the paper that he left for Russia the last of June, as a member of the Red Cross Commission. Lucile and I ran the experiment by ourselves. I simply couldn't eat 200 grams of corn meal a day at first, so I started in on

125 grams whole wheat flour
175 grams wheat flour
made with bread.

300 grams milk
35 grams lettuce
200 grams apple
200 grams olive oil (for the lettuce)
80 grams butter
50 grams sugar

The sugar I put into apple sauce. I thought I needed those calories. This diet gave about 48 grams of protein, and about 2300 calories. I ate it for twenty days - for the next eight, I substituted corn bread for the whole wheat. The corn bread contained 110 grams of corn meal and 220 grams of wheat flour. I cut down on the sugar slightly so that this diet yielded practically the same number of calories, and the same amount of protein. I maintained my weight throughout the entire 28 days. My nitrogen balance was slightly negative during the first five periods, but my calculations for the last two are not yet made.

Lucile ate corn meal 110 grams in bread & 90 grams as mush for 23 days. Otherwise her diet was like mine except for the oil. We feel that corn meal is not a good thing in such large doses. She found it laxative and she said she felt stuffed all the time. Her abdomen was hard to the touch, and she really didn't feel well. I got along beautifully on the whole wheat and also very well on the smaller amount of corn meal. The corn meal was harder to eat however. There was no taste to it.

Well it is late now and my bed time. How have things gone with you and your mother? I've thought of you so many times and I've intended to write, but like lots of other things I put it off because I was tired when I got out of the laboratory. I won't be in New York for more than a few days because I'm anxious to reach home by September 5th. Ellen is going to have a party for Aunt Mary on that day.

I suppose you have heard from Lucy. Ellen writes that the children are darlings. I'm glad I won't miss seeing them.

Good night now. I hope you'll write when you find time. Give my love to your mother and keep a great deal for yourself.

Anna