Category Archives: World War 2

American Steelworker, 1943

1943Aug9Life1943Aug9Life2Shown here on the cover of Life Magazine 80 years ago today, August 9, 1943, is steelworker Ann Zarik. She had been employed by the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Works at Gary, Indiana, for five months as a flame burner. Her job was to cut out pieces of armor plate for ballistics tests. Her father worked there as a millwright, and her sweetheart was in North Africa in the Air Corps.

Women had quickly filled the ranks of lighter industry. For example, in 1941, only 1% of the aviation workforce were women, but that had jumped to 65% by 1943. But the magazine noted that, unlike in Britain and the Soviet Union, women were slower to fill jobs in heavy industry.

The women were paid the same rate as men, the minimum being 78 cents per hour. With overtime resulting from a 48 hour work week, that worked out to $40.56 per week.

The magazine noted that “the women steel workers at Gary are not freaks or novelties. They have been accepted by management, by the union, by the rough, iron-muscled men they work with day after day. In time of peace they may return once more to home and family, but they have proved that in time of crisis no job is too tough for American women.”



“Doc” Burkhart, Hanceville Drug Co, AL, 1943

1943AugRadioRetailingShown here is “Doc” Burkhart of Hanceville, Alabama, in the August 1943 issue of Radio Retailing. Next to his workbench, you might see some packages that look out of place, because Doc is actually a pharmacist, the proprietor of Hanceville Drug Company. He had turned his hobby in radio into a business. The store had a radio sales department for some time, and he had become the town’s only radio repairman.

In this picture, he was converting battery sets. Since batteries were hard to come by during the war, this allowed them to go back into service, doing their part to keep the nation informed and entertained.



Radio Engineering Cadettes, 1943

1943JulRadioRetailing2Eighty years ago this month, these two young women were learning the finer points of voltage indicators under the tutelage of this Purdue University engineering professor. They were “Radio Engineering Cadettes,” and were paid trainees at RCA.

As you can read here, 86 women from 17 states began the 44 week program in 1943. Because of wartime labor shortages, they were the first women to attend the engineering school.  The picture above appeared in the July 1943 issue of Radio Retailing.



1943 British Homemade Alarm Clock

1943JulPracMechWar meant shortages of many things in Britain, and one of those things was alarm clocks. But people had to get up, and the July 1943 issue of Practical Mechanics carried these plans for taking matters into your own hands. It was sent in to the magazine by one R.W. Lewthwaite of Plymouth.

It’s not a new idea. We’ve previously shown similar designs from 1911 and 1921.  The basic idea is quite simple. Since the metallic hour hand is going around anyway, you can set it to make electrical contact at a certain hour and turn on a bell or buzzer. In this case, it turns on both a lamp and buzzer, powered by two flashlight batteries. A switch is also included to turn it off when not in use.

Here, a thin brass extension is soldered to the hand so that it can make contact with a bolt mounted in the glass face. The article even includes instructions for the delicate process of drilling through the glass. The thin brass strap has sufficient slack so that it doesn’t slow down the clock. If that turns out to be a problem, then a thinner piece of brass should be used.

According to Mr. Lewthwaite’s letter to the magazine, there has been a lot of discussion lately about the short supply of alarm clocks. But fortunately, he was able to find an adequate supply of “eight-day car clocks” to press into service.  Presumably, lack of fuel meant that the market for automotive accessories had dried up.

As we noted in our earlier posts of similar ideas, young STEM enthusiasts can use a similar idea to make their own alarm clock.



Keep Your Radio Working: 1943

1943JulRadioRetailingEighty years ago, domestic radio production had been shut down for over a year, and there would be no new radios for the duration of the war. Therefore, it was every American’s patriotic duty to keep their current radio in working order.

In this ad in the June 1943 issue of Radio Retailing, the makers of Tung-Sol tubes was making available to dealers this display of booklets, containing hints for consumers on how to keep their radio working. The ad noted that many Tung-Sol tubes were available to dealers, so that if repairs were needed, they were probably possible.



Kids with Bicycles Wanted for Wartime Deliveries

1943JuneBLThis interesting ad appeared in Boys’ Life magazine eighty years ago this month, June 1943. It encouraged boys and girls to do their part toward the war effort by making themselves and their bicycles available to local retailers for deliveries, since they were “finding difficulty in getting grown men for delivery work.”

For kids who already had a bike, they could start offering their services.  But if they didn’t have one, they could “go to their nearest Roadmaster Bicycle (Cleveland Welding Company) dealer and ask him to help you fill out an application to get a bicycle.”

The application was necessary because bicycles, like many wartime commodities were being rationed, and were available only to those in critical occupations.  Specifically, they were not being made as children’s toys.  But if the kids were willing to be the last mile of the wartime supply chain, then presumably they qualified.

The wartime models were bare bones, without many features.  So the ad encouraged kids to  invest their earnings in war bonds, and buy a post-war model as soon as they became available.



1943 “Gibson Girl” Transmitter

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Eighty years ago this month, the June 1943 issue of Radio News showed the transmitter that was to become known as the “Gibson Girl.”  The two downed airmen had nothing but hope, and their potential rescuer was beyond the horizon, with no way of knowing they were there.

But that was soon to change, and the men would have with them a hand-cranked transmitter capable of summoning help over long distances, thanks to an automated message sent on 500 kHz.  Rescuers would be able to hear it for hundreds of miles, and zero in on their location through radio direction finding.

The antenna was to be made out of Belden wire, and they were justifiably proud of it.



Electric Sentry for Air Raid Warden: 1943

1943MayPM5Eighty years ago, this west coast air raid warden was subject to call at any moment, but he might need to be somewhere in his house other than next to the telephone. His solution was to use something called an “electric sentry” to alert him.

As near as I can tell, an “electric sentry” was a one-way intercom, which used the house wiring to transmit the signal. The transmitter was plugged in near the telephone ringer. He could then carry the receiver to another room in the house, or even a neighbor’s house, with the assurance that he would hear the ringing phone.1943MayPM6

Here, he appears to have the sentry receiver nearby while he repairs a radio. His daughter assists him by trying on his warden’s helmet. The transmitter is shown at right.

The item appeared in the May 1953 issue of Popular Mechanics.



Woody’s Radio Service, New York, 1943

1943MayRadioRetailingThis busy looking wartime shop at 131 East 34th Street, New York, was actually two stores. Shown at the left is Woody, the proprietor of Woody’s Radio Service. At the right is O. Saporta, owner of a business that sold music and records, and had recently started carrying greeting cards.

Woody’s business kept him very occupied, as he specialized in servicing hotels and apartments in the “high class section” of the city. His clientele consisted of many of the best-known people in New York. In addition, he did work for the Merchant Marine, and serviced “Muzak” in hotels.

Saporta, with whom he shared the store, was well known in New York music circles, according to the May 1943 issue of Radio Retailing, where the picture appeared.



1943 Victory Gardens

Screenshot 2023-05-02 1.16.45 PMEighty years ago today, the May 3, 1943, issue of Life magazine showed a few of the 18,000,000 victory gardens that had taken the place of lawns, fields, and even prison yards. Shown above are the “pretty bare-legged girls” of the Jane Addams High School in Portland, Oregon. The school, whose students were being “educated in house-wifey virtues,” replaced the school’s smooth green lawn with this garden, whose produce would be used in the school cafeteria, nursery school, and “practice house.”