| 0:00:00 |
She graduated from high school in 1939 in West Springfield. |
| 0:00:15 |
It was extremely hard to get jobs so she went to art school for a year. |
| 0:00:29 |
She needed to go another year, but she did not have the money, so she worked as a waitress and at other jobs. |
| 0:00:47 |
During the war she was working in a doctor's office and one of his patients said. "You like to draw. Why don't you do drafting? " |
| 0:01:15 |
Her father was a draftsman and she asked him what it was; He gave her a standardized test that he gave every apprentice. She got the highest mark that anyone ever had. |
| 0:01:47 |
She went to the employment office to see if there was anything available and there was a position open for a draftsman. |
| 0:02:22 |
She was given a number of written tests and became an apprentice draftsman. |
| 0:03:31 |
Her future husband Irv was their metallurgy teacher. They met at the Armory. |
| 0:04:10 |
At the Apprentice school they had classes all day for about four months. |
| 0:04:59 |
All the others in the class were college graduates, but she did as well or better than most of the people in the course. |
| 0:05:17 |
After that, they sent us to the University of Michigan for more classes. They took classes at the Engineering school and what they were learning was equivalent to the first year course in engineering. |
| 0:06:18 |
They were going to classes for eight or nine hours a day plus homework. |
| 0:06:32 |
After she got back from Michigan this is when Irv and she started going to the movies and playing tennis. |
| 0:07:00 |
Irv agreed to stay in the service a little longer to teach the apprentice school. |
| 0:08:28 |
They got engaged when Irv was in the service and were married in October of 1944. |
| 0:09:37 |
When she worked at the Armory the shop had a pleasant atmosphere. |
| 0:10:33 |
Mr. Swidlow was upset because, just when they got you trained, you left to get married. She wanted to find a job out in Michigan while her husband was in the service. |
| 0:11:13 |
Then she worked on tank design at General Motors in Chevrolet Central Engineering. |
| 0:11:59 |
There was nothing frightening about the Armory, because you were with a group of people you knew very well from your section. |
| 0:13:48 |
There was no jealousy from the women in manufacturing, because she never saw them. |
| 0:15:03 |
In the back of her office was a tennis court where she and some of the other women would go and play during lunchtime. |
| 0:15:29 |
Some of the soldiers stationed there would use gunstocks to stir up the maple syrup they would try to make. |
| 0:17:00 |
During the war she only worked five days a week. |
| 0:17:30 |
The Armory was a great place to meet single men during the war, because a lot of men were in the Pacific or Europe. |
| 0:19:00 |
She didn't encounter any sexism from her bosses; she only received encouragement and help. |
| 0:19:45 |
When they came back to Springfield she worked at General Electric designing transformers. |
| 0:21:20 |
In those days her job title was not draftsperson, it was draftsman. |
| 0:22:36 |
In building 111 there was a cafeteria for the employees, but she only got a half an hour to eat so she could not eat there. |
| 0:23:29 |
She would bring her lunch to work and she ate while she worked. This gave her the opportunity to go for a power walk during her half hour break. |
| 0:24:00 |
She would ride the bus from West Springfield to the Armory every day, and she received preferential treatment because she worked at the Armory. |
| 0:24:45 |
Later on she would ride into work with a car pool, it was always a very interesting ride. |
| 0:26:10 |
After the war, Irv got his job back at the Armory and he stayed there until 1967. |
| 0:26:55 |
He worked on light rifles for about five years and she later worked on sporting rifles. |
| 0:28:00 |
The Armory closed during height of the Vietnam War. |
| 0:29:03 |
The big shots in the Armory were talking with the Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara about continuing production at the Armory. |
| Side B |
|
| 0:31:29 |
She waited to have children until she was twenty-nine, and she had four children with a two year interval between each one. |
| 0:32:02 |
She enjoyed staying home with her children she thought it was the greatest thing one could do. |
| 0:32:24 |
After her kids were old enough, she decided to go back to work. She hadn't worked in twenty years and many employers were leery of hiring her. |
| 0:32:43 |
She eventually got a job part time for an engineering company, but she was only there a short time because they lost a big contract and didn't need her anymore. |
| 0:34:09 |
Her younger sister went into the cadet nurses after high school. |
| 0:34:52 |
The Armory was a friendly working environment when she was there. |
| 0:35:41 |
There wasn't a lot of competition at the Armory. The government wasn't trying to make money, but to make the best project that they could make. |
| 0:36:06 |
For raises they had a system for checking what you were doing. |
| 0:37:00 |
There was a great need for cooking utensils. Because she government was using so much metal for the war effort we had to use plastic forks and spoons. |
| 0:37:36 |
Another shortage was housing after the war it was hard to find a place anywhere. |
| 0:38:55 |
Transportation was very tough during the war because gas was rationed. |
| 0:39:00 |
During the war she had to ride a bicycle to and from work. |
| 0:40:26 |
The lines were so bad that she would go without meat. My husband and she would go to Canada to have a steak dinner when they lived in Michigan. |
| 0:41:48 |
Private industry helped to destroy mass transit, because they want to see everyone with their own car. |
| 0:42:26 |
Clothing was one thing that wasn't hard to get. Women still wore dresses and skirts to the office. |
| 0:43:12 |
The national origins of the engineers and draftsman was very diverse, but she noticed there were many Polish people were at the Armory. |
| 0:44:44 |
She thinks that the Armory really didn't have a great affect on the city of Springfield. |
| 0:45:00 |
The armory was widely respected by private industry. Her husband came from General Electric to the Armory during the war. |
| 0:45:45 |
Her husband had to go through a long process of education and cooperative experience to have a career in engineering. |
| 0:48:10 |
He was unhappy with hus job and he was offered a job at the armory as a junior engineer for $2,000 a year. |
| 0:48:38 |
She started working at the Armory in November of 1941 one month before Pearl Harbor. |
| 0:48:52 |
Even though she was getting deferments she volunteered when it became obvious that she was needed in the service. |
| 0:50:29 |
During the war everyone was totally devoted to the war effort and they didn't care what they had to give up. |
| 0:51:45 |
They didn't know about many of the terrible things about the war until it was over. |
| 0:55:55 |
The whole war was so terrible that everyone in the world had to be involved in ending the oppression. |
| 0:56:26 |
It was a good thing that they had the Armory. Springfield Armory's rifle was of top caliber. If they didn't have this combination anything could have happened on the battlefield. |
| 0:57:00 |
It was 1936 when the Armory really started to produce the M1 rifle. |
| 0:58:18 |
She designed picture group sheets for her first couple of months. |
| 0:59:00 |
There were one thousand machine operators who built the M1 rifle and she was able to see all the different operations that were put into the M1. |
| 1:00:12 |
There were blackouts during the war. They had to make sure residences were completely dark. |
