Rosie the riviter

We all know Rosie worked in the factories during WW 2....... But did she work in tractor factories too?

My mom worked for Stewart Warner making Ammeters and Oil Pressure Gauges. Some were probably put on tractors. Jim

They weren't making tractors during the war- everything devoted to the war effort. Read once that the remaining unsold MM UDLX's got sold during the war because nothing else was available.

Farmalls were made. Maybe not full production, but there are many of them being described on the IH Farmall forum. They had steel wheels and a cast iron shift knob, and bad paint. My uncle had an Farmall H with those specs. Its wheels were cutoffs. Jim

In the Crystal Bridges art gallery, the actual painting by Norman Rockwell is Rosie the Riveter. She wears a Baldwin Locomotive badge. Holding a hefty rivet gun, with her foot on a volume of Mein Kampf.

Tractor plants greatly reduced tractor manufacturing and made other stuff for the war effort. Yes there would have been a raise of women working in the tractor plants too.

Around 16 million US men fought in WWII. That was around 11% of the total population. Then you think about how these would have all been in there 20-30s that is a huge chunk of the work force of the time.

I am still amazed at how the US was able to turn its manufacturing focus to the war effort in such a short time period. Then look at how much material the factories produced.

In just airplanes alone the US made 280,000 planes. 97,000 of them bombers. A single plant, Fords Willow Run Plant, made 8700 B-24 in one plant. At its peak production it completed a new B-24 every 63 minutes.

My mom worked in a rope factory, the factor was originally a buggy factory it now owned by the city. The city renovated the building all city and county Strategic Services are in one building : )

They sandblasted the wood and walls and left as much of it exposed as they could it takes your breath when you walk thru it...

https://rantnc.com/2016/03/18/a-look-at-downtown-sanfords-dusted-off-gem/

AND, J.D.S., THATMEANT SOMEONE BUILT 36,000 PRATT & WHITNEY R-1830 ENGINES, FOR EM...BE BLESSED, GRATREFUL, PREPARED...FLEW BEHIND EM, IN DC-3 43-16096

Also Ford made the 2-N tractors, the 2-N the 2 stands for 194 2. They were on steel wheels and no starter or lights, hand crank and mags. joe

Some say Rosie worked in the Willow Run factory helping make B-24 bombers, coming up from Ky to Michigan to work at Willow Run during the War. Here is an artists drawing representing Rosie & millions of women stepping up to work for the war effort,perhaps around 1941. Poster was used in recruiting campaign at that time also.

My Mother built C-46-47s at Curtis -Wright factory in Louisville Ky from 1942 -late 1945 . She and my Aunt Marie started out in the wings because they were small framed and weighed less than 100 lbs.
But , Mom got heat exhaustion and that was the end of her being in the wings, Mom went on to running parts and supplies all over the plant and knew that airplane inside and out whenever it came to parts or any special applications . Aunt Marie stayed inside the planes , and virtually worked thru the entire aircraft at one time or another. She also ran wiring and cable controls and hydraulic lines. They each got a 8 inch momento Cast Aluminum C-46 airplane when the Curtis Wright plant shut down war production around Thanksgiving 1945. Ffffd-to 1968 .. the farm below ours was bought by the founder of Louisville Ladder Co. Lewis Berger saw all of us out working the garden and took the opportunity to introduce himself.Dad showed Him around to Fertilizer and seed dealers and hardware around Lanesville and a Roast Beef Manhatten at K&H . After a couple beers, Lewis brought Dad back home, and under the shade tree remarked to my Mom ,"You Look familiar ??" .. Mom said ,"You do too ? " ..They Both Recollected nearly at the same time and exclaimed , "You are MILDRED "and "You Are Lewis from over at the Curtis Wright plant, You were one of the supervisors !" We had a wonderful working and caring relationship for some 20 yrs. until Mr Berger passed away.

She might have made a few tractos, but not many. Only the ones the military needed.

But it is amazing what was accomplished by the available workforce that was stripped of all it's best workers when they were sent to fight.

Imagine being brought from changing diapers to standing in front of a milling machine trying to hold aircraft tolerances!

No experience, only minimal training, under the gun to produce as many parts as possible, and hold near impossible tolerances on machines considered stone age crude today!

Only by the will of God!

they did make tractors during the war just not a full production farmers needed some new ones to keep up the food supply but production was NOT stopped during the war.

This brings up a question I've wondered about before. "Rosie" worked in thousands of factorys on both sides during the war.
Was she truely a non combatant or was she a legitimate target when we bombed the Krupp ball bearing plants along the Rhur in Germany or the Yakajima aircraft plants in Tokyo?

America's industrial might one the war just as much as the armed forces. A large portion of the production went to the bottom of the ocean, especially off out Atlantic coast, so it took many many replacements.

My mom and grandmother worked at Chase Brass making shell casings. Mom operated overhead cranes and forklifts loading boxcars. Gram later worked at TRW inspecting jet turbine blades.

America's industrial might one the war just as much as the armed forces. A large portion of the production went to the bottom of the ocean, especially off out Atlantic coast, so it took many many replacements.

The above picture was never referred to as 'Rosie the Riveter' until used as a mascot for the women's movement in about 1980. It was a monthly inspirational poster for Westinghouse IIRC. The actual R the R was painted before that by Norman Rockwell (who used a local telephone operator as the model) and was based on Michelangelo's prophet Isaiah in the Sistine Chapel.

There is an excellent YouTube channel called The Great War that started in summer 2014. Indy Neidell is the host and he goes through the events of WWI in real time week by week. There were also extra episodes every week, and one covered the US s rise to meet the needs of the Entente powers for war material. This set the foundation for production to the Allies in WWII.


Production didn t "miraculously" start at a huge scale in December 1941. The US was already manufactuing material on a large scale by then. We were filling orders for lend/lease for at least a year before for the British. Once we were attacked on 7 December 1941, we just expanded production into plants building "nonessential" machinery.

The John Deere GM exists because of restrictions put on price increases during the war. Deere has held off on styling the G in 1939 when they did the A and B. When they finally got around to it, the war board rejected their application for a price increase. Deere s solution was to come out with a "new" model - the GM. They changed it back to the G in 1945.


Massey Harris wanted to keep building combines, so they went to the war board and made a deal that they would harvest the Great Plains with their machines. Since we sent out best and strongest off to war, there was a huge shortage or manpower to run the threshers. Anyone on here knows what kind of crew it takes to keep a thresher running. The board approved and Massey Harris basically started up what continues today - harvest crews following the ripening wheat from south to north.

As for Rosie, many women happily and readily went to workin the factories. Many wanted to stay after the war. But once the men came home, they were all kicked out. Just as much propaganda was printed after the war that preached "a woman s place is in the home".

Don't forget the women who flew fighters and bombers all over the U.S. transporting them where ever they needed to go to free up male pilots for combat. A short but interesting book on this is Fly Girls, author P. O'Connell. Your library can get it.

harvest / threshing crews were around long before WWII, massey harris did not create that idea. So were plowing crews.

(quoted from post at 12:58:23 12/01/19)
harvest / threshing crews were around long before WWII, massey harris did not create that idea. So were plowing crews.

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Massey Harris built the combines that REPLACED the threshing crews

Yes, plant workers in the plants were fair game. They produced war materials, so there were no war crimes committed there. Germany and Japan didn't care if they bombed homes, schools, or hospitals though. They payed a heavy price for that.

Priceless!👍

Interesting. Annual calendars depicting his paintings are popular around here from merchants wanting to advertise. I wonder where Norman got the rest of his ideas? Certainly had a recognizable style.

I read several books about the Henry Ford adventures. If you Google map the area, you can still see remnants of the WW II plant including the runway where they tested and shipped them out. He had to create a town to house all the workers....that in itself was a chore...on and on with the problems, but he made it work. Recalling a single building where parts and raw materials came in one end and completed B-24s came out the other. US Govt. hired him because they thought he had the expertise, experience, and assets to make it work....and he did

(quoted from post at 10:07:47 12/01/19) Don't forget the women who flew fighters and bombers all over the U.S. transporting them where ever they needed to go to free up male pilots for combat. A short but interesting book on this is Fly Girls, author P. O'Connell. Your library can get it.

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They also flew them to europe. Friend of mine's mother flew P-38s overseas.

That's right, the war started in the US before 1938.

My daughter and son-in-law work on the 737 fuselage line at Spirit Aero here in Wichita. Yes, they are still building 52 737 max fuselages per month and shipping them out on railcars. Boeing is stacking them somewhere.

Anyway, just a few years ago a local group finished restoring Doc, a B29 and at the rollout a few of the ladies who built the B-29s at Boeing Wichita toured the 737 building. The 737 fuselages are built in the same place the B-29s were built. My daughter was happy to meet one of the ladies and she discovered that her workstation is right where the lady's work station was when the B-29s were built. Same building, same floors but hopefuly different cranes overhead.

(quoted from post at 08:03:32 12/02/19) I read several books about the Henry Ford adventures. If you Google map the area, you can still see remnants of the WW II plant including the runway where they tested and shipped them out. He had to create a town to house all the workers....that in itself was a chore...on and on with the problems, but he made it work. Recalling a single building where parts and raw materials came in one end and completed B-24s came out the other. US Govt. hired him because they thought he had the expertise, experience, and assets to make it work....and he did

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Texasmark1 I went to the website for the museum there. It told how the US gov't wanted Ford to dedicate a plant to nothing but B-24s so that they could build one a day. Instead his head engineer designed a plant with an assembly line which everyone said was impossible at that time. They ended up turning one out every HOUR.

Boy lots of bad info here.

To start with it took months to convert factories over to war production. Yes some production was for lend lease but even that was enough to pull the US economy out of the great depression. The Depression ended in the US in 1942.

So there were tons of workers and idle factories just sitting there ready to be put to work or used.

Total war production only used about 45% of the total US capacity. That far different from England that used 100% of their capacity as did Germany and Japan. About the only 2 things that were not produced during the war for civilians were cars and aircraft. But all through the war you could buy new furniture, appliances and such.

Yes "war tractors" did exist. As described at first they were all magneto ignition and hand start. The materials needed for generators and starters plus batteries were needed for the war effort. Steel wheels too. Most of us are familiar with gas rationing stories from WWII. They had plenty of gas and oil. The TX/OK/LA fields were producing like mad. What we didn't have was rubber. The Vichy French allowed the Japanese to occupy French Indochina. Vietnam and such. That's where we got most of out rubber. After that our only source was India and it had to be shipped around South Africa. So they rationed gas to conserve rubber forcing people to use mass transit and trains. They of course told the people that the gas was needed for the war effort.

As far as MH wanting to build combines to harvest with? Yes they tried but they failed. The war production board turned that request down. That's why so many threshing machines are up in northern areas, The summer of 45 the custom threshing crews started down south and worked north. They were getting close to the end of the season when Japan surrendered. The finished harvest and abandoned the threshing machines rather than ship them home knowing that for the next season they could have combines. The value of scrap died the day the Japanese tossed in the towel so there was nothing to be gained trying to sell them. Scrap man didn't want them. Manpower for the threshing crews wasn't a problem either. Most farmers were exempt from the draft as was anyone working in a war essential job. Cops, firefighter, farmers were considered essential. Now there were exceptions. Say you were farming with 2 sons. One could be drafted. Same with some factory jobs. Or engineers. Train crews too. Plus for what it's worth? Actual combines were around in the late 1800's. And no, a combine was not a MH idea. The self propelled part was but not the combine itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_harvester


Kinda like the scrap metal drives they had where people were donating pots ans and anything else. Most of that stuff went to the dump. Very little was used. We had huge iron ore mines and didn't need it. That was designed to make the average citizen, the ones who were to young, female, too old or crippled up to feel like they were doing there part. Basically it was a scam. There some good info on the Brits doing the same thing. Except in England there were a lot of fancy wrought iron fences that were scrapped. When the war ended they had piles of this stuff. Not wanting to let the people know they were lied too they loaded it on barges and this stuff was dumped into the ocean.

Rick

I had one great aunt that worked in the willow run factory. The factory closed after the war, then was bought by Frazier? Building cars. That only lasted a couple of years. Then GM s transmission plant burned down, they bought the plant, turned it into the Ypsilanti transmission plant. One of my grandfather s was a small dairy farmer in Livonia, just outside Detroit. He also was a mechanic, butcher. He was recruited, by a local labor board to work at the Ford rouge plant during the war. He lost an eye there. Weirdly, the same labor board assigned a Jamacian guy to help at his farm. My other grandfather worked a Cadillac motors, they built light tanks, plus a lot of components for other war equipment. Both grandfathers raised chickens, truck crops, and the farmer raised pigs and beef also. My grandfather who worked at Ford s made a lot more money selling his farm stuff at work than he got paid. I suspect that it was all off books. He did have problems with neighbors during the war, as he got a gasoline allotment for his farm. He had to lock up his tank, one neighbor was still not talking to him when I was a kid, 20 years later. Both of my grandmother s had jobs of working also, even though they had kids at home, they had a program to do piecework at home. I think the rouge had over 50K workers during the day.