Now I know many of you have read Tom Brokaw’s book titled, The Greatest Generation. It is excellent, but it looks at the country as a whole. I thought it would be good today if I shared a view of the greatest generation from a Missouri perspective. Let’s start with the Great Depression.
The Great Depression (1929-1939) was the worst economic downturn in modern history.
Four years after the1929 stock market crash, during the bleakest point of the Great Depression, about a quarter of the U.S. workforce was unemployed. Those that were lucky enough to have steady employment often saw their wages cut or their hours reduced to part-time.
Even upper-middle class professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, saw their incomes drop by as much as 40 percent. Families who had previously enjoyed economic security suddenly faced financial instability or, in some cases, ruin.
The average American family lived by the Depression-era motto: “Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.”
Households embraced a new level of frugality in daily life. They kept kitchen gardens, patched worn-out clothes and passed on trips to the movies as they privately struggled to retain ownership of a home or automobile.
Women’s magazines and radio shows taught Depression-era homemakers how to stretch their food budget with casseroles and one-pot meals. Favorites included chili, macaroni and cheese, soups, and chipped beef on toast.
Potlucks, often organized by churches, became a popular way to share food and a cheap form of social entertainment.
Many families strived for self-sufficiency by keeping small kitchen gardens with vegetables and herbs. Some towns and cities allowed for the conversion of vacant lots to community “thrift gardens” where residents could grow food.
Between 1931 and 1932, Detroit’s thrift garden program provided food for about 20,000 people. Experienced gardeners could be seen helping former office workers—still dressed in white button-down shirts and slacks—to cultivate their plots.
The average American family didn’t have much extra income to spend on leisure activities during the 1930s. Before the Depression, going to the movie theater was a major pastime. Fewer Americans could afford this luxury after the stock market crashed—so more than one-third of the cinemas in America closed between 1929 and 1934.
Often, people chose to spend time at home. Neighbors got together to play cards, and board games such as Scrabble and Monopoly—both introduced during the 1930s.
The radio also provided a free form of entertainment. By the early 1930s, many middle class families owned a home radio. Comedy programs such as Amos ‘n’ Andy, soap operas, sporting events and swing music distracted listeners from everyday struggles.
Some families maintained a middle-class income by adding an extra wage earner. Despite widespread unemployment during the Depression years, the number of married women in the workforce actually increased.
Some people criticized married women for taking jobs when so many men were out of work, though women often took clerical or service industry positions that weren’t seen as socially acceptable for men at the time.
Women found work as secretaries, teachers, telephone operators and nurses. But in many cases, employers paid women workers less than their male counterparts.
The New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt meant the expansion of government into people’s everyday lives after 1933. Many Americans received some level of financial aid or employment as a result of New Deal programs.
Prior to the Great Depression, most Americans had negative views of government welfare programs and refused to go on welfare. In some towns, local newspapers actually published the names of welfare recipients.
While attitudes toward government assistance began to change during the Great Depression, going on welfare was still viewed as a painful and humiliating experience for many families.
The stress of financial strain took a psychological toll—especially on men who were suddenly unable to provide for their families. The national suicide rate rose to an all-time high in 1933.
Marriages became strained, though many couples could not afford to separate. Divorce rates dropped during the 1930s though abandonments increased. Some men deserted their families out of embarrassment or frustration: This was sometimes called a “poor man’s divorce.”
It’s estimated that more than two million men and women became traveling hobos. Many of these were teens who felt they had become a burden on their families and left home in search of work.
Riding the rails—illegally hopping on freight trains—became a common, yet dangerous way to travel. Those traveling the country in search of work often camped in “Hoovervilles,” shantytowns named after Herbert Hoover, president during the early years of the Great Depression.
Living through the Great Depression and World War II, the greatest generation developed a tremendous resilience in surviving hardship and solving problems.
The great depression created some of the worst times in our history only to be followed by WWII. Most people would simply give up, but not this generation. Instead, they used these experiences to set an example for all of us to follow. They showed us:
- Personal Responsibility: The harsh reality of the Great Depression forced many to a higher standard of personal responsibility, even as children.
- Humility: The Great Depression fostered modesty and humility in many of those who lived through poverty..
- Work Ethic: Hard work enabled survival during both the depression and the war. Many jobs at the time were physically demanding, with long hours.
- Frugality: Saving every penny and every scrap helped families survive through times of shortage. “Use it up, fix it up, make it do, or do without” was a motto of their time.
- Commitment: One job or one marriage often lasted an entire lifetime.
- Integrity: People valued honesty and trustworthiness, values fostered by the need to rely on one another.
- Self-Sacrifice: Millions sacrificed to defend their country or support the war effort from home.
So the Great depression dropped them to their knees. How could things possibly get worse? World War Two.
Two of my former students Evan Adrian and Jessica Cowan did a lot of research for a project and found some fascinating information about Missouri during the war years and I’d like to share some of it with you today.
When thinking of the victory and sacrifice of those that fought in the Second World War, there are no words that can be expressed to describe what so few accomplished for so many.
Our service members were the finest our country had to offer and they never can be thanked enough.
But a little known fact is that there was another group of heroes who made a major contribution to the war.
These are the men and women that are not usually given the praise that they very well deserve.
Throughout this nation, there were many people who went to work supplying the men fighting the “good fight”.
The industrial base in the United States at the time relied heavily on the small businesses, so much so that ninety-five percent of American business in the 1930’s was done through small businesses.
One hundred seventy thousand of the businesses and small plants produced seventy percent of all United States goods, while another one hundred large corporations produced the other thirty percent of products.
The State of Missouri was very proactive in Missouri’s contribution to the war against Japan and Germany.
Industry was only a portion of what Missouri had to offer in the war. Missouri’s farms played as much of a part in the supply of American troops as Missouri industry.
Laws were enacted that allowed many skilled farmers and farm-hands to be exempt from selective service due to the dire need for their experience and skills they could provide in producing the much needed food for the country and the troops.
Citizens were also asked to do their part in home front activities during the war.
Cultivating home or “victory” gardens, increasing the cutting of timber that could be used for war, recruiting manpower for farms, collecting scrap metals, setting up councils of defense, and to encouraging recruitment into the armed services were all activities that any American at home could do to contribute to the war effort.
Many citizens were given the opportunity to learn a new skill that would be useful to industry and contribute to the war. In Missouri more than twenty-two thousand people went to trade schools and most of them were with a war training program.
Vocational training for war production was a law that was enacted by Congress in June of 1940. Congress recognized that if the United States were to enter the war they would have the same problem that the nation had encountered in 1917, the nation was short of the millions of workers that were needed for war time production.
Under Public Law 647 and 135, passed in 1942 and 1943, respectively, one hundred eighty million dollars was appropriated for war time production training. This program was known as VE-ND (Vocational Education for National Defense) and there were twenty-six centers set up in Missouri to teach Missourians the necessary skills for production.
These twenty-six centers were entirely funded by the Federal Government, with no local or state money going to their set up or operation. Nationwide centers, like the ones in Missouri, trained over forty thousand men and women per year in various different jobs for war production.
St. Louis may have been the single most important city in the United States for war production. It held the largest percent of war contracts over any other city in the nation.
The war was very good for the St. Louis economy, bringing around a billion dollars into the area (Flynn, 485).
St. Louis’ Schlueter Manufacturing Company was one of two manufactures in the nation that produced the M1 helmet. Being the only piece of protective gear a soldier had, this was a very important piece for the individual soldier. Schlueter was a peacetime maker of pots and pans who converted with the United States’ entrance into the war (GD 9/12/1943).
Diagraph-Bradley Stencil Machine Corporation was another St. Louis industry that was one of three manufacturers in the world of stencil cutting machines. The machines were important because of the logistical aspect of war and the shipped goods needed to be well marked to avoid confusion (letter from V/P of Diagraph-Bradley to STSOM, 6/14/1946).
St. Louis Ordnance plant may have been one of the most important war plants that Missouri had during the war.
The bullets that St Louis produced were used in every type of fighting. They were used by the infantry soldier all the way up to the machine guns on fighter planes. The plant was built by the government with the sole purpose of producing ammunition for the military.
Ground was broken for the plant on March 28, 1941 on the northern edge of St. Louis’ industrial district. The plant sprawled across three hundred acres and by war’s end had over four million feet of floor space in its three hundred buildings after it was decided an additional plant that was one and a half times bigger than the first would be needed.
The two plants combined would become the St. Louis Ordnance Plant, and the biggest industrial plant in the Midwest (BBTB). Much like the other ammunition plants across the nation, and the one on the other side of the state, St. Louis Ordnance was owned by the United States but was run by a private company. Western Cartridge was the company that supervised construction, trained the employees, and operated the plant throughout the war (BBTB).
To illustrate the size of the operation there are some interesting facts. The plant used over six million gallons of water per day and also used forty-four hundred gallons of lubricating oil on their machinery per day.
Four hundred twenty-eight trucks were required to bring in materials each day and sixty carloads of brass were used each day.
The plant required nearly five hundred eighty thousand kilowatt hours of electricity, nearly five million cubic feet of gas, and eighty-eight tons of coal per day for energy.
There were twenty-six cafeterias open around the clock. A first aid station and registered nurse were stationed in every manufacturing unit. There was also a fully equipped and staffed hospital inside of the plant’s area to provide care to any sick or injured workers (BBTB).
Ammunition was being produced just seven months after breaking ground for the plant and cartridges were first accepted by the Ordnance Department on December 8th, one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Try getting that done today!
By the end of the war St. Louis produced nearly thirteen billion rounds of small arms ammunition.
Small arms ammunition produced at the St. Louis Plant were the .30 carbine (made for the M1 carbine), 30.06 (used in the M1 Garand, 1903A3, and light machine guns), and the .50 caliber (used in heavy machine guns). The rounds were also made with three different bullets: ball (standard full metal jacket), tracer (leaves a lighted trail), and armor piercing (St. Louis Post 6/5/1942).
Like most wartime industries, finding enough workers to staff the plant was an ongoing struggle for St. Louis Ordnance. The plant was the single largest employer in the St. Louis area during the war. At its peak numbers, there were over forty-two thousand men and women working three eight hour shifts six days a week at the plant. Of whom, nearly fifty percent were women.
Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company was another important asset in Missouri’s production arsenal. Their production of power turrets was extremely important to the war effort because it allowed bombers and transport planes to protect themselves from enemy fighter planes.
Like many other plants, Emerson’s turret plant was part of the Defense Plant Corporation, with Emerson building and operating the government owned plant. The plant started to be built in July of 1941 and was built for the sole purpose of producing power turrets.
Machinery was operational and turrets were being built just six months after ground breaking. Again, imagine trying to accomplish that in this day and age! (Turret Plant Open House Pamphlet 4/16/1944).
Emerson made five different types of turrets during the war, all of which contributed to victory. They built the Sperry Ball Turret which was used on the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator, heavy bombers.
They also built the Sperry Upper Deck Turret which was used on the B-17 Flying Fortress and the Grumman Upper Deck Turret which was used on Grumman Avengers, a carrier based dive bomber. They also built the Martin Upper Deck Turret that was used on the B-24 Liberator, and the Emerson Electric Nose Turret which was also used on the B-24 Liberator, heavy bomber (Emerson Electric catalog).
The plant was so important to the war effort that the government classified it as one of seven irreplaceable war plants in operation. This meant that any loss in the plant’s capabilities, by enemy action or accident, could have an immediate impact on victory in the war (GD 2/18/45).
Kansas City also played an important part in Missouri’s war production. One out of every one hundred American war dollars were spent in Jackson, Clay, and Wyandotte counties.
In total there were almost four hundred war plants in the Kansas City area. Although most of the war plants were small operations, two were massive and vital to victory (Flynn 62-63). The Lake City Ordnance Plant was the backbone of government ammunition, becoming the first of its kind.
American Aviation produced huge numbers of bombers for the war and became a significant asset to American war production.
Foodstuffs were also a great industry in Kansas City. The close relation with farming and ranching proved to be important to Kansas City industry during the war because of the many food processing plants (Flynn 62-63).
Lake City Ordnance Plant played a major role in arming the troops with the ammunition they needed for the war.
To start, the Ordnance Department began by building three plants that would be able to meet their production goals of one million .30 caliber ammunition and six hundred thousand rounds of .50 caliber ammunition per day (Remington 3-4).
Lake City was to be the first in operation followed by Denver and St. Louis. Remington Arms was given operational command over Lake City and Denver. It took just ten months transforming a Missouri farm into a plant that was supplying ammunition to the forces.
The initial plan of one million rounds of caliber .30 was increased in the first contract with Lake City to two million rounds per day. The expected need for .50 caliber remained the same (Remington 6). This meant the plant had the challenge of producing nearly twenty-four .30 caliber rounds per second and seven .50 caliber rounds per second!
One of the most amazing aspects of the Lake City plant was the massive amount of employees that it had during the peak production time.
The plant required at least sixty-five hundred employees to operate at full production. During peak production the number of workers at the plant was over three times that number.
In 1943 Lake City had an astounding twenty thousand people working at the plant. The sheer size of the employee base was amazing. It became a city in itself, with the only difference in that the employees lived outside of the plant.
Having such a large workforce presented the plant with the problems of a city.
Lake City had to provide and maintain its own water and sanitation facilities to provide potable water and take care of its sewage. The plant also had twenty-five miles of roads and had its own bus system to transport the workers.
The twenty thousand workers all needed to be fed, so the plant had six cafeterias that were open night and day. There was also a hospital staffed with ten doctors and nearly fifty nurses. The hospital had sections for men and women, a surgical unit, x-ray, laboratory, and an ambulance service. There were also seven first aid stations scattered throughout the plant that were operated 24 hours a day.
Along with personal care, the plant had to provide its own security and protection. This was very important because of the type of production that was occurring at Lake City. At the time, Lake City’s police department was larger than Kansas City’s police department. The compound had twenty-four miles of fences, with police guarding the posts.
American Aviation, Inc. also played a very important role in Kansas City’s war production efforts. American Aviation produced B-25 bombers that would put fear into the Axis forces.
The company started out building small, two-seater, training planes and a three seat observation plane for the United States Military.
Ground breaking for the new plant was held on March 8, 1941 and the plant was turning out bombers three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
American Aviation’s plant was built to be used as a war plant and had features to protect itself from possible enemy attacks. It was one of the first “black out” plants that were built in the United States. This meant that the plant could operate twenty-four hours a day, without the risk of a possible enemy plane seeing the glow from the lighting at night.
The entire plant was air-conditioned so the doors could be left closed and not let out light from the fourteen miles of fluorescent bulbs that were required to light the plant (KCS 1/4/1941).
Much like other war plants, the American Aviation plant became its own city.
The number of planes that came out of American Aviation was staggering. In 1943 more bombers were made in Kansas City than any other plant in the world.
On April 3, 1945 the six thousandth bomber was delivered by American Aviation (KCS 6/24/1945). By the end of the war the plant had delivered nearly seven thousand bombers to the government.
Two-thirds of all B-25’s were made at the Kansas City plant and at peak production the plant was turning out an average of thirteen bombers per day. In August of 1945, American Aviation produced three hundred bombers in twenty-three days.
American Aviation was always in need of workers during the peak production phase of the war through early 1945. Many of the workers were women in the plant because a large number of men were overseas fighting the war and women took over their places on the factory floors.
Women would apply for the job that they wished to do and if they were over eighteen, in good health, and seemed mentally alert, they would be hired .
However, it was a very selective program being hired to work at American Aviation. The women were required to tell about their family history, be finger-printed, and take a physical examination before being employed at the plant. After they were hired, they were sent to a two month long school to learn the job skills that they would be performing at the plant (Gray 8/16/1942).
Speaking of women, let’s talk about their contribution.
Women across the United States gave up their lifestyles and made tremendous sacrifices to contribute to the war effort during World War II.
The need for women in the workforce became necessary if not desperate. Women had never worked outside the home in greater numbers or with greater impact prior to World War II.
The majority of women in the workforce prior to the war were from lower working classes and many were minorities. With men off to fight in the Atlantic and the Pacific, women were called upon to take their place on the production line and fill the vacancies in other professions (National Archives).
The opinions regarding women in the workforce varied. Some felt that women should not occupy jobs that otherwise unemployed men could hold. Others felt that working in a factory at an assembly line was beneath women of a certain economic status (National Archives).
According to the pamphlet titled, “Womanpower”, distributed by Labor Mobilization and Utilization:
“Womanpower is a headache because…it involves a complete dislocation of normal routine. Consequently, most women neither understand it nor like it…men even less. Therefore, it is essential to establish the fact that not only is it necessaryfor women to work, but it is an entirely normalprocedure under a wartime economy, and to convince men as well as women that…the more women at work the sooner we’ll win.”
According to the December poll conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion regarding women’s opinions on womanpower: 40 percent were willing, 40 percent were unwilling, 17 percent said, “Yes, if…” and 3 percent had no opinion.
When the husbands were polled, they were asked the question, “Would you be willing to have your wife take a full-time job running a machine in a war plant?” Their response was: 30 percent said yes, 11 percent said, “Yes, if…” 54 percent said no, and 5 percent said ‘don’t know’. The summary of the opinion study was this:
“The information campaigns must convince 20 percent of the men that women are needed in war jobs. It must convince 54 percent of the husbands that their wives (if they have no young children) should take war jobs. It must convince 40 percent of the younger women, and 64 percent of the older women, that it is their duty to take a war job.”
Regardless of public opinion, the reality of the times was that our country needed help in the workforce. We needed help winning the war. The War Manpower Commission, a Federal Agency established to increase the production of war materials, recruited women into employment vital to the war effort.
The women of the Greatest Generation stepped up and met the challenge and then some.
Now one final key element to wartime production in Missouri. Farming.
Farming played a major part in Missouri’s contribution to the war effort. Where the plants in St. Louis and Kansas City provided the bullets that the troops needed, farmers fed the nation‘s workers and the troops overseas.
Right out of the gate, Missouri farms started producing for the war effort .
By the end of 1941, farm production numbers were twenty-five percent higher than the previous year despite labor shortages. The wheat crop in the heartland hit an all-time high of 326,267,000 bushels and the number of head of cattle surpassed nineteen million (Hawkins 24).
The USDA War Board recognized that it was paramount for the farmers to produce as much food as possible for the American and Allied troops and the citizens of the country.
Despite the farmers increased goals in production and shortage of labor and machinery, farm production met wartime needs almost religiously. Corn, oats, soybeans, milk cows, and chickens were produced well over their goals in 1943 (8).
Missouri farmers had their share of struggles in their mission to feed the masses. The two biggest problems they faced were shortages of labor and machinery.
Many of the young men that worked on farms as either farm hands or managers were not exempt from Selective Service in the early part of the war.
This took many experienced and knowledgeable workers off of the farm and not producing the goods that the country needed. Congress recognized this error in 1943 and enacted deferment policies for men that were essential and needed on their farms (62nd H/S.J.A. Vol. II 5).
In the first year of the war, Missouri farms lost nearly one-quarter of the labor force due to Selective Service or men wanting to fight in the war.
The farmer’s only choices to attract labor were to offer higher salaries, implement better equipment that reduced necessary labor, or to use family members and neighbors.
By the end of 1942 full time help’s wages had gone up thirty percent from Missouri’s average of thirty-five dollars a month to forty-five dollars, and seasonal help’s wages had seen a thirty-eight percent increase or from forty-seven to sixty-five dollars per month.
Even though the pay for labor was rising significantly, Missouri farmers still had a decline in farm-hands and seasonal laborers. Many of the rural Missourians moved to the cities to take high paying war jobs, leaving fewer workers in the rural communities.
This meant longer hours for most farmers, employing the use of women, children, and the elderly, or an increase in labor saving equipment and farming practices.
More often than not, farmers would carry the burden on their shoulders when it was possible. Many farmers reported that they would do nineteen months of labor in a year to pick up the slack that was left by labor shortages. Women in the rural areas contributed around five months of labor on top of their other duties and there were many young men that left school early in order to work on the farms.
The equipment shortage that faced the farmers was another area that caused problems. New machinery was something that was for the most part unavailable to farmers during the war.
The rationing of building materials made the purchase of new equipment unlikely, so the farmers had to make do with what they already had in the community. Many farmers had to revert back to old methods such as using mules because the mules didn’t break down, they were easy to find, and they didn’t use any of the rationed gas.
Missouri played a very important part in the war. The war goods that it produced in the major cities and the food that was grown in her soil all helped to win the war. WWII was not only won on the battlefield, but was also won in Missouri’s factories, plants, and fields. All manned by Missouri’s Greatest Generation.
So as we sit here today thinking about how bad things are. Let’s stop for a minute and ask ourselves. Are current times worse than those of the Great Depression or World War II? Better yet, ask yourself, can I, as a part of my generation, even come close to the achievements of my parents and grandparents? If so. How?
The answer is right there in front of you. Study your history.