WOMEN IN PRODUCTION
FACTORIES
With the help of women workers, total industrial production doubled between 1939 and 1945. The military production was astounding: 300,000 aircraft, 12,000 ships, 86,000 tanks, and 64,000 landing craft in addition to millions of artillery pieces and small weapons.
Women workers groom lines of transparent noses for A-20 attack bombers at Douglas Aircraft’s Long Beach, California plant, October 1942 .gif) Credit: National Archives |
Amanda Smith at work at the
Douglas
Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California  Credit: Library of Congress |
Women worked six days a week, enjoyed only a handful of holidays, and were pressed to take overtime to keep the assembly lines operating around the clock.
A woman inspector confers with a worker as she makes
a careful check of center wings for C-47 transport
planes,
Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California  Credit: Library of Congress |
Lucille Little works
in the
El Segundo Plant of the Douglas aircraft company  Credit: Library of Congress |
Lathe operator machining parts for transport planes,
Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant,
Fort Worth, Texas, October 1942  Credit: Library of Congress |
