There Mother’s Day is another good opportunity to see the world through women’s eyes, although progress has taught us not to treat the female gender as an object bake children and to focus on the right to total independence in this sense. The world is still not at all aligned on this issue, and it is a great flaw to be corrected by thinking that the sprouts of improvement had already been laid many decades ago, albeit indirectly.
An example can come from Citroënconsidering that as early as 1920 women were at the heart of his workforce. Within his factories, André Citroën had made state-of-the-art facilities and services available for the time, including crèches with laundry, kitchens and nursing rooms, an infirmary, including a gynecological clinic. So much so that Parisian women were advised to “go and give birth in a Citroën”. André Citroën was also a master of communication: carrying on good ideals, he was also able to create series of books, toys and cars, first pushed by pedals and then with electric motors, to be more linked to the 360-degree concept of family.
In 1918, André Citroën found his own formula for the assembly line concept. Inside the factory there were already the plants for the production of tubes and quick-cut steel that allowed the machines to run three times faster and there were the workers. After having built a new 18,000 square meter warehouse, André Citroën started the production of the machines necessary for the manufacture of cars, employing 3,500 workers and (above all) female workers who became 11,700 at the end of 1918, when, with the return of the military from the war, the percentage of women dropped to 21%. In 1920, with production underway, the staff of the factory grew significantly e women then represented over 50% of Double Chevron employees.
To be precise, in the Javel factory there were 4,000 individual changing rooms, 1,300 sinks, 250 toilets. The infirmary, managed by a full-time head physician, had many waiting rooms, an analysis laboratory, an X-ray station, the gynecological clinic, the nursing and the operating room: a real complete clinic, with twelve nurses, in order to guarantee everyone the necessary assistance and care. The nursery was located in an old school in the inner courtyard. From Monday to Saturday, in its four floors it housed children under the age of three, was equipped with laundry and kitchens separate from those of the factory and allowed mothers to breastfeed their children five times a day. Young girls took care of the children while the mothers for post-partum convalescence and older children were housed in an adjoining property.
According to André Citroën, the first words a child had to learn to pronounce were “maman, papa, Citroën“. From this assumption, the production of toy cars in kit form began: “Les Jouets Citroën“. The pedal cars also got an electric motor: they were called “Citroënnette” and in 1938 two of these were given to the English princesses Elisabeth and Margaret. Even today you can find on the market the Citroën 2CV with pedals, faithful in colors to the originals, usually in 1: 4 scale.
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