Clearly not everyone on the Higgins Industries staff was fully on board with enthusiastic, heroic pronouncements from the official organs of the company– or at least that’s suggested by the satiric send-up of TheHiggins Worker.
This is the “masthead” of one of the few examples from our collection. Another masthead is seen below.
The Higgins Shirker spared no person or department in its scathing and sometimes very racy pieces– especially parodied was the Higgins Cafeteria, referred to alternately as the Higgins Slopiteria and the Higgins Bacteria. Below is one of the cartoons referencing the Bacteria.
Evil twin of The Higgins Worker?
Post by The National WWII Museum Curator Kimberly Guise
Tough enough to chew nails? The February 11, 1944 issue of the Higgins Worker featured a real “Wendy the Welder,” Stanislawa Barr, a welding trainee at the Industrial Canal plant. The article states that Stalislawa who toured in the 30s as the “world’s strongest girl” now “astounds the plant’s strongest men by breaking 60 penny spikes with her teeth, and defying any man to lift her.”
Post by The National WWII Museum Curator Kimberly Guise
The third installment of Worker Wednesday features Ourtown, the settlement of Higgins employees that evolved from Shipyard Homes near the Industrial Canal operations of Higgins Industries. By 1944, Ourtown had grown into a thriving community with over 750 residential units. Ourtown had many of the features of other wartime neighborhoods– its own Red Cross chapter, Girl and Boy Scout troops, victory gardens, a primary school and library. Pictured in the Higgins Worker from Friday, September 22, 1944, are three of Ourtown’s Scouts participating in the Office of Civilian Defense’s (OCD) efforts to collect waste paper. The War Production Board created a program called “Paper Troopers” to engage the nation’s students in salvage efforts. Successful Paper Troopers could earn awards and advance in rank.
Once again– it’s Worker Wednesday! This light-hearted report from the June 16, 1944 issue of The Higgins Worker describes an embarassing shop floor incident and shows that the workers can handle anything that comes their way.
The article reads:
In the face of all sorts of nearly disastrous difficulties, production goes on at Higgins Engine Company! We offer the above photo as proof. When George Damore met with an accident on his job― namely, the ripping of his trousers in a most embarrassing place, George nonchalantly backed up to the receptacle containing rags, resurrected the remnants of a tattered old bedspread from it and draped it, sarong-style, about the exposed portions of his anatomy.
Having lost but a few seconds, he returned to his machine and continued with his job while Louis Pechon, alias “Louis the Tailor” sat nearby and mended his pants.
We don’t know exactly how George managed to get the trousers back on without losing a little productive time―but when we passed the Tool Crib a few minutes after this picture was snapped, there was George working at his machine, and he was most conventionally garbed again. Louis was busily checking tools, minus thimble, needle and thread. The ragged bedspread, so lately a prop in “cheesecake” photography, was once again reposing in the rag container―forlorn and forgotten!
It’s Worker Wednesday! This series will feature news and photographs from the publications of Higgins Industries.
At the suggestion of an employee, beginning in late 1941, Higgins began to publish a newsletter written by and for its growing workforce. By 1943 Higgins would employ more than 25,000 workers in 8 plants across the New Orleans area. The monthly workers’ initially entitled The Eureka News Bulletin, was intended to inform, educate, stimulate production and build morale. In late 1943, the newsletter evolved into the weekly, The Higgins Worker. Andrew Jackson Higgins wanted the newsletter to be current. As quoted in Jerry Strahan’s book Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II, Higgins stated: “if something happens on a Thursday and the paper comes out on a Friday, goddamit I want the thing that happened on Thursday to be printed in the paper that comes on the press the next day.” The newsletters featured announcements of plant-sponsored events such as blood or bond drives, shop news, jokes, cartoons and the scores from the numerous sports teams populated by Higgins employees.
