When World War II started in Europe and Asia, the Depression still held the United States economy in its grip. Depression era programs were still being run even after the draft began in early 1941. It was obvious that the war was going to have an impact on the U.S. and McLean County. Manufacturers in Bloomington were keen to get defense work and actively sought it out. The Association of Commerce in Bloomington brought in speakers and sought information to get Bloomington the best chances at defense work, even though our factories were small in comparison to other cities' factories.
Prior to the entry of the U.S. into the war the government was presenting clinics and workshops to inform manufacturers what sort of products the government was seeking for defense. Representatives of Bloomington manufacturers and the Association of Commerce travelled to Chicago for a clinic in October of 1941, hoping to bring their factories to the attention of the larger factories that were already engaged in war work. None of the Bloomington firms had defense contracts at that time, but were hunting them down.
L. S. Watlington was the chairman of the Defense Work committee of the Association of Commerce. He warned manufacturers that unless they managed to get defense contracts, they would find it impossible to acquire materials. They would be out of business completely. Getting defense contracts was a matter of survival of their businesses and the jobs of hundreds of men in Bloomington. The manufacturers cooperated and combined their efforts to win the coveted defense contracts through the efforts of the Association of Commerce. Seven out of fourteen manufacturers had already obtained contracts by December of 1941 -- before Pearl Harbor.
With the coming of the war and defense contracts, women had the opportunity to perform work that, just possibly, paid a living wage, or at least more than women were paid for teaching, domestic work or nursing. Watlington first hired women at his plant in October 1943. The Pantagraph said they were the first to work in a "war factory" in Bloomington. Ray and Janice Carnahan (right) might have disagreed with that statement -- they were working 24 hours a day supplying an unnamed gadget to a defense firm in their four man machine shop in 1942.
Mrs. Gretchen Sauter (Nels) and Mrs. Pauline Sauter (Joseph) were married to two army men from Bloomington and felt that war work was the right thing for them to do. They were living with their mother in law, Alice Sauter. Alice had four sons in service. Gretchen operated a milling machine and Pauline worked on various machines in the factory.
They were joined by Louise Zabel, who also was not a Bloomington native. Louise had done previous defense work in Wilmington, Illinois. All three told the reporter that they didn't mind getting their hands greasy from the work and actually liked their work.
Another "first" in 1943 was when the Alton railroad shops hired their first girl messenger -- Beverly Daley. Her father, Dewey, was a clerk in the store room at the rail yard. Beverly married on December 16, 1944 to Harold Feger, a brakeman with the Alton Railroad.
These women were some of the Rosie the Riveters from Bloomington! I'm hoping to see some of them in the McLean County Museum of History Pantagraph Negatives Project as I complete my work in the coming weeks.