Original Title/Caption: “Production. Willow Run bomber plant. Working with skill and precision, these women operate a spot welding machine in the largest single story building in the world, Ford's giant bomber plant at Willow Run, Michigan. Ford plant, Willow Run.”

Description: This black and white photograph shows two women workers maneuvering sheet metal into a spot welding machine at the Willow Run Ford Plant in Michigan.  The two women wear visors and gloves, and another workers hands and chest are visible just behind the machine.  This photograph was taken in July 1942 by Ann Rosener.

Source: Rosener, Ann, photographer.  “Production. Willow Run bomber plant. Working with skill and precision, these women operate a spot welding machine in the largest single story building in the world, Ford's giant bomber plant at Willow Run, Michigan. Ford plant, Willow Run.”  Photograph, 1942.  From Library of Congress: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Call number LC-USE6- D-005686.  http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8e11139 (accessed March 20, 2007).

Historical discussion: Historian Alice Kessler-Harris argues, “Where workers had to plead for jobs in the thirties, in the early forties industry begged for workers.  And when the army had soaked up the residue of unemployed men, employers turned to women.”  In fact, some five million women entered the workforce between 1940 and 1944 (Kessler-Harris 273).  The war created new opportunities for women in heavy industry and, at least temporarily, expanded the bounds of “women’s work.”

See Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).