For the month of March, Women’s History Month, the blog series, Worker Wednesday, devoted to war production employee publications, in particular those of Higgins Industries, the Eureka and Higgins Worker, will focus on women workers. Higgins Industries employed over 20,000 in plants across the New Orleans area. Among these employees were thousands of women. Higgins notably hired women and minority workers for skilled and supervisory positions and built vocational programs to instruct these workers in skilled tasks.
In the March 30, 1945 issue of the Higgins Worker, winners of the “Miss Carbon” contest were featured. Higgins crowned a “Miss Carbon, Day” and “Miss Carbon, Night”, one from each shift. The winners of this personality contest were selected via monetary vote. Fellow workers contributed $1 per vote to the Red Cross, raising a total of $1045.15. Frances Moreau was “Miss Carbon, Night” and Hannah Slayton was “Miss Carbon, Day.” Their “King Carbon” was WWII veteran D. Dahmes.
Join us at the Museum on March 28th for a special Women’s History Month event “Beyond Rosie: Women’s Roles on the American Home Front.” See here for more details.
For the month of March, Women’s History Month, the blog series, Worker Wednesday, devoted to war production employee publications, in particular those of Higgins Industries, the Eureka and Higgins Worker, will focus on women workers. Higgins Industries employed over 20,000 in plants across the New Orleans area. Among these employees were thousands of women. Higgins notably hired women and minority workers for skilled and supervisory positions and built vocational programs to instruct these workers in skilled tasks.
The issue March 3, 1945 issue of the Higgins Worker featured women in several columns. One piece focused on women workers who were actually leaving Higgins to enter the service. Oris Huet and Catherine Manfee who had both worked in the Payroll Department were departing Higgins in March 1945 (Oris after nearly five years!) to join the WAVES. (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), the women’s division of the US Navy.
Gift in Memory of Arnold Schaefer, 2012.359.003
Join us at the Museum on March 28th for a special Women’s History Month event “Beyond Rosie: Women’s Roles on the American Home Front.” See here for more details.
The Higgins Industries newsletter, The Higgins Worker, profiled in the Worker Wednesday series, begs for a Tuesday post in honor of this newsletter item about the religious holiday referred to as, among others, “Little Christmas,” “Epiphany,” “King’s Day,” and “Twelfth Night.” In New Orleans, January 6th signals the start of the Carnival season, culminating on Mardi Gras Day or “Fat Tuesday.” King’s Day is marked by the eating of King Cake, a tradition that was honored on January 6, 1945, in the Higgins Little Red School House in Ourtown, the settlement established for workers at Higgins Industries. To read more about Ourtown, see the previous post.
Seventy years ago this week, on 11 October 1944, Vice Presidential candidate Harry S. Truman visited Higgins Industries. Truman’s running mate, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had visited the company two years earlier on 29 September 1942 during his whistle-stop tour of production facilities across the country. Truman was the guest of Andrew Higgins at a luncheon at the Roosevelt Hotel. Higgins called Senator Truman’s visit to New Orleans and to Higgins Aircraft a “perfectly happy occasion.” The visit was pictured in the Higgins newspaper, Higgins Worker issuefrom 20 October 1944.
The Prima brothers from New Orleans, Leon and Louis, were featured in the 8 September 1944 issue of The Higgins Worker, when Louis traveled through New Orleans on tour. Louis Prima had gained success in the 1930s as jazz vocalist, trumpeter and bandleader. During the war, Louis continued to enjoy popularity, despite the overt Italian themes in his music (his hit “Angelina (Waitress at the Pizzeria)” was released in 1944). His older brother, Leon Prima, also a musician of some note, was employed at Higgins Industries as a mill worker.
Program from the 10,000th Boat Ceremony. The National WWII Museum, 0000.045.001
July 23, 1944, was a milestone in production for Higgins Industries. Seventy years ago today, Higgins Industries held an enormous celebration upon the delivery of the 10,000th boat to the Navy. The 10,000th boat, an LCM, was completed a day earlier and transported on a platform to the site of the celebration, New Orleans Lakefront. Not even two months following the D-Day landings at Normandy, Higgins staged a reenactment of those landings at New Orleans Lake Pontchartrain. A ship anchored in the lake unloaded troops onto landing craft which invaded the seawall of Lake Pontchartrain where thousands watched the display. PT boats also played a role in the show, patrolling the shores, and aircraft flew as if in defense against enemy aircraft. The ceremony was attended by Bureau of Ships chief Rear Admiral E.L. Cochrane, who in his address to the crowd called Andrew Jackson Higgins “a pioneer” in the field of landing craft. He praised the work and achievements of the men and women of Higgins Industries.
Ceremony for the 10,000th Higgins boat on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, 23 July 1944. Gift of Louis Gilmore, 2008.379.023
Ceremony for the 10,000th Higgins boat on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, 23 July 1944. Gift of Louis Gilmore, 2008.379.024
Ceremony for the 10,000th Higgins boat on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, 23 July 1944. Gift of Louis Gilmore, 2008.379.038
Ceremony for the 10,000th Higgins boat on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, 23 July 1944. Gift in memory of Andres N. Horcasitas, 2009.428.010
Ceremony for the 10,000th Higgins boat on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, 23 July 1944. Gift in memory of Andres N. Horcasitas, 2009.428.011
Ceremony for the 10,000th Higgins boat on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, 23 July 1944. Gift in memory of Andres N. Horcasitas, 2009.428.012
This week, April 6-12, 2014 is the Week of the Young Child™, an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). In conjunction, this week’s Worker Wednesday touches on childcare in WWII.
April 1944 marked the end of the Higgins Industries publication, The Eureka News Bulletin and the rise of the new Higgins publication, The Higgins Worker. The new publication was more like a newspaper than a magazine—printed on newsprint, shorter in format and available to employees every Friday. The topics were current and concerned matters of everyday employee life, like childcare.
The need for womanpower during WWII brought to the forefront the issue of what to do with the kids while mom is at work. For the first time, there were more married women than single women in the workforce, some of them mothers. Childcare centers were opened around the nation. Federal subsidies from the Federal Works Administration provided extra support for communities, employers and families in need of childcare. Families paid fees which were capped at 50 cents per day in 1943 and 75 cents in July 1945. Some of them, including the one at Higgins Industries, even operated 24 hours a day, for mothers working evening and night shifts. The daycare at Higgins, opened 70 years ago this week, was located in Shipyard Homes, a public housing project established in 1943 to house employees and their families. In July 1944, there were a peak 3,102 federally-subsidized child care centers, enrolling 130,000 children. The center at the mammoth Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California could accommodate over 1,000 children. At the end of the war, many of the subsidized childcare facilities were closed under the assumption that the need was no longer there. California, the state with the most children enrolled in childcare, mounted the loudest protest against withdrawal of funding and some funds continued to flow into the program through early 1946. By July 1946, less than 1/3 of the wartime centers remained open.
The December 1943 issue of the Higgins Industries newsletter, The Eureka News Bulletin, included this warning, perhaps a reference to the excesses of the holiday season.
