Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory
In 1943 two spirited young teachers decided to do their part for the war effort by spending their summer vacation working the swing shift on a B-24 production line at a San Diego bomber plant. Entering a male-dominated realm of welding torches and bomb bays, they learned to use tools that they...
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In 1943 two spirited young teachers decided to do their part for the war effort by spending their summer vacation working the swing shift on a B-24 production line at a San Diego bomber plant. Entering a male-dominated realm of welding torches and bomb bays, they learned to use tools that they had never seen before, live with aluminum shavings in their hair, and get along with supervisors and coworkers from all walks of life. They also learned that wearing their factory slacks on the street caused men to treat them in a way for which their "dignified schoolteacher-hood" hadn't prepared them. At times charming, hilarious, and incredibly perceptive, Slacks and Calluses brings into focus an overlooked part of the war effort, one that forever changed the way the women were viewed in America.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781560983682 (156098368X)
Publish date: October 17th 2004
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
Pages no: 200
Edition language: English
For those among us who have family members among the Second World War generation (a generation that is now, sadly, dying off in ever increasing numbers), this book brings home a tangible, palpable sense of what life on the Home Front USA was like during those times. The author of "Slacks and Calluse...