(H)our History Lesson: Defense Manufacturing in Evansville, Indiana, World War II Heritage City

Christening a P-47 Thunderbolt in Evansville, Indiana, 1943. “Betty Frasier christened this P-47 Thunderbolt in 1943 as Mayor William Dress and other notables, including businessman Kenneth C. Kent (right) looked on. Republic Aviation broke ground for the facility south of the airport in April 1942.

University of Southern Indiana, Rice Library Digital Collections

About this Lesson

This lesson is part of a series teaching about the World War II home front, with Evansville, Indiana designated as an American World War II Heritage City. The lesson contains readings and photos to contribute to learners’ understandings about the home front contributions of Evansville to defense manufacturing. This includes the Evansville Shipyard, Chrysler Ordnance plant, and Republic Aviation.

Objectives:

1. Describe the war effort and contributions of Evansville.

2. Explain and reflect on the impact of World War II on the way of life, workforce composition, and industries in Evansville.

3. Compare local, historical perspectives on service to synthesize and connect to larger wartime perspectives and themes.

Materials for Students:

1. Photos (can be displayed digitally)

2. Readings 1, 2, 3 (and optional extension)

3. Recommended: Map of Evansville, Indiana

Getting Started: Essential Question

How did war manufacturing in Evansville impact the economy and contribute to defense efforts in WWII?

Read to Connect

Reading 1: Morgenthau Speech

Background terms: 

• LST is an acronym for Landing ship, tank. LSTs were designed to transport and deploy troops, vehicles, and supplies directly on shore, without needing piers or docks. LSTs were used as part of the Allied invasion of Normandy  known as D-Day. US LST-325 is the last fully operational LST and is on the list of the US National Register of Historic Places. It was built in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, but is moored as a memorial in Evansville, Indiana.  
• Henry Morgenthau Jr was the Secretary of the Treasury from January 1, 1934 to July 22, 1945, most of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency. He played a major role in shaping the New Deal and was the first Jewish person to be in the presidential line of succession. 
• War Bonds were issued by the government during war to raise money for military needs. When people bought war bonds, they were lending money to the government and, in return, received interest payments. This helped finance weapons, military infrastructure, and support for soldiers, allowing citizens to contribute to their country's war efforts. 

War Loan Over Top, Says Morgenthau in Talk Here 

Text of Morgenthau Speech 

Evansville Press, September 30, 1943, p.1 & 11 

Following is the text of Secretary Morgenthau’s talk at Evansville Shipyards Thursday: 

I am happy today to be in the largest inland shipyard in the United States—perhaps in the world.  

Here in Indiana, on the banks of the Ohio River, we are in the midst of corn and wheat fields. Nevertheless, thousands of people are at work here, day and night, building ships—helping to create the largest, most complete, most adept fleet in history; a Navy of eighteen thousand ships. 

We are building here what the Navy Department calls the Ohio River Navy, because so many of these new shipyards lie along the shores of the Ohio. 

A few minutes after this broadcast, I will participate in launching a large, strange-looking craft known to the Navies of the United Nations as an LST. These LST’s or landing ships for tanks, are as large as a destroyer. They can carry tanks and heavy equipment and troops to any beach-head in any part of the world.  

LST’s are important not only because of the stupendous job they are doing in the war, but they symbolize the initiative of the democracies. 

Working with the British, we designed and built them after the start of the war, because a need for them arose. . . . 

Program Unequalled 

In barely a year and a half you people here, and men and women in other shipyards like this, have brought to a climax one of the most complex construction programs in the history of Naval shipbuilding. Never before has a building program of such scope been attempted in so short a time.  

For this, you and all the rest of the people who are building ships are to be congratulated. You have earned the deepest gratitude of your nation. 

I am delighted to know also that you are doing a good job of buying the bonds that pay for the ships. Shipyards all across the country have made high bond records. Your record here is very good.  

I am glad of that because no American is likely to enjoy ease of conscience or peace of mind unless he meets his bond responsibility in full. He will have done his part only when he really feels pinched, really knows he has given up something.  

He can keep faith with his fellow members of our democratic society only if he gives his share of the load, to the limit of his own strength. For a democratic society is founded on the promise that each of its members voluntarily will play his essential part. . . .  

Our every word or every deed must reaffirm that our armies are in fact the people’s armies, that the world of our future will be in fact a world for all the people, all of the time. We know why we are fighting. This war is our passage to the future. 

Reading 2: Oral Histories - War Production in Evansville

Part 1: Joseph O’Daniel 

Excerpt from “Joseph O’Daniel Interview” (June 13, 1975) -- Oral History Collection – Rice Library Digital Collections by University of Southern Indiana. 

When World War II came along, we (Chrysler Corporation) were known as the refrigeration center. At one time we had a Refrigerator Bowl Football game here. This advertised the fact nationally that we were proud of that, because we had more people working in the refrigeration industry than any other city in the country. The industrial make-up of the community by that time was dominated ty the light metal trades. Labor was not highly skilled, nothing like the machine tool trades. There were skilled people but with moderate skills.  

So, when World War II came along, Servel (they dropped the Electrolux name) had to get into war work and Chrysler Corporation converted its plants to making ammunition, and a new plant was built south of the airport for the purpose of making Republic Aviation Thunderbolts. Servel made the wings for those Thunderbolts. We acquired a boat manufacturing plant for the river front area which helped create a peak employment of sixty-seven thousand industrial jobs in the Evansville area.  

The war industries, generally speaking, were highly unionized and there were several unions represented in the shipyards. There were several unions at the Republic Aviation, so the area for the first time became a stronger, organized labor market where previously there was practically no organized labor in industry other than in the trades and crafts. At the conclusion of World War II Evansville was fast becoming a ghost town because of the discontinued war production. We had to get started back in consumer products. Servel, of course, went back to consumer products, as did Chrysler Corporation plants. 

Part 2: Agnes White 

Agnes White worked at a local cigar factory prior to working on munitions production at the Chrysler Ordnance plant in Evansville. Excerpt from “Agnes White Interview in Evansville, Indiana” (February 4, 1982)-- Oral History Collection – Rice Library Digital Collections by University of Southern Indiana. 

Agnes White (AW): Then I thought my husband was going to war, so I thought that I better find me something that made a little more money, so I went to work out at Chrysler. . . The first time I made bullets. I worked about a year and a half that time. Then they got laid off and the next time I went back I made - they call them grousers. They fitted on tractor's wheels so that they could go in the mud. Next, I helped make firebombs. They were for the war with Japan. I worked there until the day armistice was declared and that about finished it.  

Interviewer, Glenda Morrison (GM): Did you quit, or did they cut everything off?  

AW: Yeah, as soon as war armistice was declared, why see, they didn't need any. I didn't have enough seniority to make whatever - I don't know what they made at that time, whether they made cars or what. . . . 

GM: So, you did make better wages by being there?  

AW: Much better. Much better. Anyone who has worked at a cigar factory and all of a sudden winds up doing war work will discover that war work is easy compared to piecework. Of course, I'll tell you for one thing, they always saw to it they had plenty of help during wartime - if they could get them. They got them at that time, and we always had plenty of help. In the cigar factory you never got time off for anything. Boy, at Chrysler you got rest periods and all that stuff. It was nice. Anyone that didn't work, missed a lot. I enjoyed it. One thing, I was on the night shift. My sister and I both worked out there at Chrysler. We both were on the night shift and they'd come out and get us. We'd have refreshments every night. You know, we hadn't been married very long and well, we thought it was a lot of fun. Pretty soon it got stale, though. You had to have some sleep sometime. You got to carpool a little and then our husbands went to bed early.  

GM: Was your husband in town then during the war?  

AW: He didn't go then. He was supposed to go. The following week he would've went, but that weekend they decided they didn't want anybody over twenty-six. He was already over twenty-six. I don't know if he would have passed anyway. He's got bad eyes. They didn't want him, so he stayed. That was real nice.  

. . . Anyway, I worked long enough to buy Wayne a wedding ring, but then I quit. Wait a minute -that's when I quit to go out to Chrysler. That’s where I was right before I went to Chrysler. . . . 

You know, when you have worked in the cigar factory then you go to a place like Chrysler, I made so much more. In fact, I made more than my husband did at that time, but I told him just to be patient because I wasn't going to work forever. Anyhow, during that period we got our house paid for which was something, but it wasn't this one though. 

Reading 3: Oral Histories- Republic Aviation in Evansville

Background: A short text on Republic Aviation can be read within Places of WWII History in Evansville, IN.

Ada McClurkin 

Ada McClurkin worked at Republic Aviation from August or September 1942, at the age of 22, until its closing at the end of the war. McClurkin also drove a carpool for other women working at the factory and used her earnings from this to buy war bonds. Excerpt from “Ada McClurkin Interview in Evansville, Indiana” (September 12, 2015)-- Oral History Collection – Rice Library Digital Collections by University of Southern Indiana. Some editing has been done for readability. 

They (Republic Aviation) hired us and then we went to a school to learn the things we would need to know in the factory.  . . They taught us to read blueprints and to handle a drill. They said we’d be there about 3 weeks, but we didn’t stay that long. They told us one day to pack. . . The next day we were going out to the factory. And they didn’t tell us what department. I don’t think they knew what department we were going to, but we went out to the factory . . . I was there till the end of the war.  

There was quite a few people (in the class) and a lot of us were women because we knew we were going to have to do men’s jobs and they told us to read blueprints, which I didn’t think I’d ever have to do. And they showed us drills and other pieces of equipment that we would probably have to use in the factory. . . 

The pieces that we used (in the factory) were air guns to drive our rivets. Sometimes we had to make the hole the rivets went into. Especially the week or two we had the machine – we had a big machine for about two weeks one time. We drilled the holes. They had a tiny little hole in it that showed us where to drill. And we drilled the hole. We had to drive a special rivet in that because it had to be flush with the material that we drilled into. And we didn’t drill those holes until we were ready to drive the rivet into it. And I used that machine for the two weeks it was there. It was a big machine and operated by the foot. . . . 

The rivet had to be smooth. Part of it fitted against the fuselage, and it was flat against that, and then the rest of that curved and went out over the wing and that had to be many rivets that would fit into that for the edges and so on. It had to be smooth because it would cause friction. Even if there was the tiniest bubble there, that was always a thing we had to watch. And that was one of the things they inspected most of the time was if those were flush and if they weren’t then we had to drill them out and do them over. 

The department my sister worked in, that's what she did. She had a stamp, but it was metal, and she had to put her initial on every piece that she inspected. And so, you had to be very careful and be sure it was right before they put their initials on them . . . 

In the summertime they would have those overhead doors open, and about sunset the pilots – the test pilots -- would start coming in, and you’d see one fly, then another one, and then another one. There would be five or six of them. And they were all spaced as they flew in. It did something to me. It was just so even. And so, to think I’ve worked on that, I’ve done that. And it was just something that you couldn’t express your feelings, but ... I don’t know if anybody else ever felt that way about it, but I sure did. 

Launching of LST 492 from the Evansville Shipyards on September 30, 1943.

Credit: University of Southern Indiana, Rice Library Digital Collections

By the numbers:

• The Evansville Shipyard employed over 19,000 at its peak. The city produced 165 LSTs and 35 other vessels, like ammunition lighters and oceangoing barges. Each LST built at the shipyard measured 300 feet long by 50 feet wide.

• The Evansville Ordnance Plant produced over 3 billion rounds of .45 caliber ammunition: the equivalent to 96% of the total quantity used by the military and other defense contracts.

• Republic Aviation’s Evansville plant produced 6,242 P-47 Thunderbolts (of 15,683 total produced). The company hired 5,000 people, and about 40% of the workers were women, which was an increase from 15% before the war.

Quotation to consider:

“Thousands (of people working there). About half of them were women and all. We had some good welders – women welders. We built some good ships, too. . . I made a good welder. I wanted to be a good welder, and I did. I wanted to learn a trade that I could learn well and get a job. . . . I worked every day I could. I had to, and I wanted to.”

- Herman Eugene Crane, worker at the Evansville Shipyard from 1942 – 1945 as a civilian. [Interview, Nov. 3, 2003, Veterans History Project]

“During war time I worked in ammunition at Chrysler making bullets running a bullet machine. Yeah, worked in ammunition till they closed the doors. My daughter always thought I worked at an auto shop, and I always said, ‘No Linda, I worked in ammunition.’ She thought that Chrysler made cars.”

• Helen Becker (Helen joined the WAVES in 1945, after working at the ordnance plant.) [Helen Becker Interview - Oral History Collection, University of Southern Indiana]

Wire harness assembly at the Evansville Ordnance Plant at the Chrysler plant in Evansville, Indiana, November 29, 1944.

Credit: University of Southern Indiana, Rice Library Digital Collections

Student Activities:

Questions for Reading 1

1. What two topics does Secretary Morgenthau discuss in his speech? Why would Secretary Morgenthau be speaking on these topics?

2. What was the importance of LSTs, and what role did Evansville play in their production?

3. What reasons did Secretary Morgenthau give for the importance of contributing to war bond efforts?

Questions for Reading 2

1. How does Joseph O’Daniel describe how World War II changed the workforce and labor environment in Evansville?

2. What work did Agnes White do at the Chrysler Ordnance plant? What does she describe as the benefits?

3. What details from White's story give insight on money and how women's jobs changed during the war?

Questions for Reading 3

1. What training did Ada McClurkin receive, and how was it used in her job at Republic Aviation?

2. What was the importance of McClurkin’s sister’s work at the factory?

3. How did the sight of the test pilots flying overhead affect McClurkin?

4. McClurkin and other women worked in wartime jobs that had usually been done by men. How may their work have impacted how people think about equality and what jobs women can do?

Lesson Closing:

How did war manufacturing in Evansville impact the economy and contribute to defense efforts in WWII?

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This lesson was written by Sarah Nestor Lane, an educator and consultant with the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education, funded by the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.