This clip of a blueprint for a project on IA 24 in New Hampton in 1964 is emblematic of the style used in Iowa Highway Commission documents from the mid-1920s to 1970s. Pre-1925 documents have more embellishment of some labels. Notice old US 63 on Pleasant Hill Street; the “oil station” building is there today.
“Women and Girls Help in Commission Drafting Rooms”, Iowa Highway Commission Service Bulletin, July 1918
Nearly twenty young women are in active training to do drafting work in the drafting room of the State Highway Commission. So many of the young men trained to this work have been called to war and so many sent out to do actual field work that it became necessary to take radical means to keep the work of this important department in pace with the needs.
W.T. Ide, of the manual training department of East High school in Des Moines, was secured for the vacation period to train a number of young women to do this work. As soon as an individual shows proficiency, she is given actual drawing work. Many more applications have come in than can be accommodated, showing great interest in this new line of work for women.
The success of the experiment so far has been such that is is freely predicted that much of the work of the drafting room will continue to be done by women.
(Transcribed from the PDF digitized on Google.)