Transcripts For CSPAN2 BOOK TV 20160403

Watching the nonfiction authors on book tv is the best television for serious readers. On cspan they can have a longer conversation and delve into their subjects. Book tv, weekends. They bring you author, after author, after author that spotlight the work of fascinating people. I love book tv and i am a cspan fan. Now on book tv, a literary tour of Long Beach California with the help of our local cable partner, charter. While in long beach we spoke with jerry ship ski, but the contributions of women to the war effort in world war ii. Not a peeping tom but learning how and where to put the rivets in a bomber. Rivets hold it to gather against the speed of going 350 miles per hour. Hour. People, mostly think recognize that we can do it poster and feel that that means that strong women, women who did not traditional and women who have stepped up and took over the jobs that men could not hold because they were out fighting for. It is an nostalgia. More and more people are identifying with the contribution that women made but also annoying in their own community that long beach can, california was a very important contributor to the success of world war ii. The war change the economy tremendously, not only for long beach but the rest of the united states. Long beach was experiencing depression, although we were very fortunate, we had discovered oil in 1921. And so the town is a booming from the oil industry at that point. But what was happening also was we are seen the development of aviation in long beach. In 1911 cal rogers flew the first transcontinental flight. He came from new york and he stopped in long beach. He made history in 1911. We have a number of aviators who brought aviation here to the city. So when the u. S. Army was looking for a place to build a plant to produce aircraft which they thought we would need in world war ii, they picked long beach because just steps away we have a wonderful airport that was founded in 1923. Is one of the first airports that had a takeoff and landing Different Directions which the Army Launched because they could use military planes that they cannot use in other places. So when it was opened in 1941 in october, they thought we are going to produce the a 26 which was a tech farmer bomber it was going to be used in france and england. But but on december 8 we had pearl harbor. A couple things happen in long beach, one, most of the ships that were destroyed and pearl harbor had been anchored here in long beach. So the families that were looked behind were long beach families. That is not a wellknown fact out there that how much long beach was connected to pearl harbor. So what happened then is they went into full production mode and was turning out planes 247 and it then needed a lot of people to work here. The men went off or warn the woman for the first time were brought out of the house and brought into the workforce. At its peak douglas was employing 45000 People Per Day in the long beach area. About 40 of those people were women. Women were trying to do whatever job they came in to take. A lot of of these women had never worked outside of the house. It is kind of funny when you look at the training materials from douglas, they were doing basic explanation of what a screwdriver screwdriver was and what a wrench was. How to use a hammer properly. How to read of blueprint. And the most important thing they had to be taught was safety because we did not have a lot of safety regulations, but we had women coming in. I thought most fascinating thing woman with long hair, they were told immediately to pull it up because it could get caught in machines and several women were scouts because it was caught in the machinery. The the other thing it could be electrified. So you start seen in the movies womens hair being smoothed up and put into what we call the snood. And it was supposed to protect you from recent or whatever but it was a safety regulation. There is a lot of practical training that went on when women first took their job. The most important learning lesson that most it was having to stand and do repetitive work, very dirty work, very exhausting work for ten or 12 hours. Douglas did an interesting thing, they hired matrons who worked in the restroom that and they had counselors as well that could help women who had different cultures. A lot of women had menstrual problems because of having to stand ten or 12 hours. A lot of people developed what was called i slouched from bending down and constantly riveting they hurt their shoulders. The rivet gun was interesting because they put it in the commercial material, if you can iron close, you can rivets. While theres not a lot of connection their other than, the regular iron that you use for close was heavier than the rivet gun. Thats true, but when you connected that rivet gun to tremendous air pressure to drive those rivets, women women became black and blue because that rivet done was constantly hitting them. This this was a new experience for a lot of people. Especially for women, it was the kind of labor that most women had not been allowed to get into. Now they were expected to do everything a man would do on the job. Woman at douglas aircraft were doing everything. They were wiring, riveting, it took 165000 rivets to put a plane together. That is plan together. That is a lot of rivets. Thats a lot of people. They would work on the outside, you would have someone would drive the rivet, and then you would have someone inside and they particularly needed smaller women. In fact douglas hired men and they refer to them unfortunately as midgets, but they were small so they could go on the fuselage and push back and flatten out the rivets. So they did that and we hear more and more of rosie the riveter. They they did everything. They put engines together. They made sure the few shallots, the bombing equipment, the sites for the bombers because they made the b17 bomber, they were accurate. Anything you can think of that requires to be done to get an airplane done, women did it. There is no you cannot do it because your woman. They were expected to do everything. If a man have been in that job doing the same thing. From that aspect they learn to do things on jobs that they would never in their lifetime expect have the skills. They were very skilled in repair and doing handiwork, it was a real change for these women. The other side of the women is not just rosie the riveter, but the Women Air Service pilots. Those were the women who once those planes are manufactures just steps away, they were then flown off to different locations by women pilots, we had one of the largest contingencies right here at the long beach airport. That was the other aspect of what women got to do that they do not get to do before the war. Soldiers and sailors did know what their wives are doing and partially because it was made into political rhetoric not only the good stuff but the women were doing this and helping win the war. There is a negative side to it. There were people who were opposed to women welding the ship, so theres propaganda out there that the ships are going to sink because they were made by women. So women had to fight that kind of propaganda hearing that i worked into this job and now theyre saying what i did was not safe. On the airplanes its very interesting, the b17, b17, one of the reasons the Memphis Belle was flown around, first of all it showed the resilience of the b17. You could shoot could shoot off that plane and it survived. It was because there is a lot going on that the b17 was called the lady of airplane because women the b17 together here in long beach. The rhetoric was going on by some members in congress and other places that women were producing this and it was not a safe airplane and it should be put together by men. So there is a tog and paul constantly. They heard what their wives did in the factory, the movie, swing shift with goldie on is based on the douglas plant in santa monica which is a most identical to hear. A lot of things happened when women worked outside the home. There was a lot of divorces in world war ii because they suddenly decided they could be single, they could be independent. They also formed other relationships in the workplace. It had an impact on the soldiers and sailors from that aspect too. They worry though what was happening with their wives and being out and doing work, there are still men working in the factories. There is young men waiting to go off to service or they may have had a deferment. So it was not unlikely that they would not meet someone else. Once the war was over propaganda shifted in the magazine and in the movies. You you are expected, if you are a woman to go home and give the job to the gis who were returning. So after the war, and very few, just a handful of women remained at douglas aircraft. When the korean when the korean war broke out there was an uptick slightly but it never got back to the amount of women during world war ii. There is some resistance again in society and also from the employers. They wanted to employ the veterans that came home and so there is preference given to men. But its interesting to watch the movies into watch the Magazine Article suddenly your places in the home, it it was not in the factory any longer. I think this period of history is important because i think people need to understand how war has changed in our society. When world war ii was happening, every Single Person in society was involved in some aspect of it. Every Single Person. The women were working in a factory, the kids in the classroom were encouraged to do things to support the war efforts. Everything was about the war. We dont have that anymore. We have a silent war going on. Very. Very few people even know that we are losing men and women still in the service of their country. That was a big difference. The other thing thing it did change the role of women. It was i think the seminal event that said that, we can