Lets hear it for the girls!

Wonderful photos – thank you for posting them.

I found another:

Brilliant…….and the planes aren’t bad either !!!!!

Planemike

There is a great book called ‘The American Aircraft Factory in World War 2’ by Bill Yenne which has lots of similar pictures plus great shots of inside the factories. I would reccomend it to anyone, had mine off Amazon.

Naturally the women could do more than hold a rivet gun. Aviatrix Elizabeth L. Gardner of Rockford, Illinois, WASP (Women’s Airforce Service Pilot) pilot, takes a look around before sending her plane streaking down the runway at Harlingen Army Air Field, Texas.

In 1946, she came to the attention of Ben Lyon, a 20th Century Fox executive, who arranged a screen test for her. Lyon was impressed and commented, “It’s Jean Harlow all over again.” She was offered a standard six-month contract with a starting salary of $125 per week.”

Once that happened it was…Goodbye, Norma Jeane….

Let’s not forget Marilyn Monroe.

You mean Norma Jeane Baker!

Mrs James Dougherty between June 1942 and 1946.

She took her famous stage name in 1946 when she signed a contract with 20th Century Fox.

Wiki-waki says
“While Dougherty was in the Merchant Marine during World War II, Monroe moved in with her mother-in-law, and found employment in the Radioplane Munitions Factory. She sprayed airplane parts with fire retardant and inspected parachutes. During this time, Army photographer David Conover snapped a photograph of her for a Yank magazine article. He encouraged her to apply to The Blue Book modeling agency. She signed with the agency and began researching the work of Jean Harlow and Lana Turner. She enrolled in drama and singing classes and had her hair cut, straightened and lightened to golden blonde.

Norma Jeane Dougherty became one of Blue Book’s most successful models, appearing on dozens of magazine covers. In 1946, she came to the attention of Ben Lyon, a 20th Century Fox executive, who arranged a screen test for her. Lyon was impressed and commented, “It’s Jean Harlow all over again.” She was offered a standard six-month contract with a starting salary of $125 per week.”

Let’s not forget Marilyn Monroe.

She was working for Radioplane making target drones when she was photogrphed for a PR story by the USAAF motion picture unit, headed by a young Hollywood star turned USAAF officer, Ronald Reagan.

The story goes that the photos were a hit and helped her get the “foot in the door” in Hollywood.

Acording to the following text for each picture, these girls are not models, but actual workers. Although they might have been informed about the shoot and had time to sort their hair ect.

The first post have a link to the Congress library, where you can find the images and the text for each image, most women are named.

I don’t know if they are in a book, but you are right in saying that they should be. Maybe one of the forum writers should look into it, or I might actually try my hand on a short article (maybe for a website).

You are right about the assemblies remaining identical 8almost), I had a spell as a riveter at Bombardier in Belfast, and thats what we did 12 hours a day. At that stage i had been 10 years in aviation, but I was still surprised to see how much work was done manually – guess thats why they gall it fitting.

Are they in a Book? If not, they really should be! Fabulous photographs.
OK, they are all models and it’s all staged, but the A/c are real, the clothes/make-up and styles are real from an era that I find wonderful.

As for film cameras…..I cut my teeth on a Zenit 11. Then moved onto a Yashica Fr1, bought 1981. I used that until 2004 when I went Digi. I cannot sell the Yashica, with lots of kit and a superb Sigma APO lens, even the original booklet and flyers. Nobody wants such kit anymore (Unless it’s a Leica)

The manual side of building Aluminium A/c assemblies has hardly changed from then.
The fabricated parts are routed out by a NC machine, it even pilot drills the holes. The the Assembly is still down to Toggle clamps and skin pegs!

Bigger stuff with more metal to get through can be automated, even Auto drill riveted, but there’s nothing like the detail assembly shops.

And another batch.
Thats the spirit, bring your own air-line (always in short supply).

This one is a heartbreaker for aviation buffs!

The only girl who actually seem to be working, rather than just holding some tools.

Well, this one seem to be working too.

A few more, since you all seem to enjoy them.

Here is one with a caption right from 1942 (original picture caption) you can almost feel the writer wanted to add “even”:

With careful Douglas training, women do accurate electrical assembly and installation work, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif.

When you consider that the pictures were almost certainly shot with one of these: http://graflex.org/speed-graphic/ you begin to see why so much care was taken – not like deleting all your bad pics today, every exposure was an odyssey in itself!

As for how the negs will age… I’ve scanned and printed plates made prior to 1916… How much will we lose to data decaying with digital?

Adrian

The problems with storing digital picture files, will will be a huge problem for any historic field in the future. Not only will unreadable DC’s be discarded by the users (even if the data can be recovered, the majority will accept the loss, rather than paying for the recovery), but the printed pictures do not retain their quality (at least for the majority of our current printing processes).

Of course we will have the official photographs and whatever collections that are made to a professional standard, but the amateure pictures will not be so dependable.

When you consider that the pictures were almost certainly shot with one of these: http://graflex.org/speed-graphic/ you begin to see why so much care was taken – not like deleting all your bad pics today, every exposure was an odyssey in itself!

As for how the negs will age… I’ve scanned and printed plates made prior to 1916… How much will we lose to data decaying with digital?

Adrian

Looking at those photos and some of those not so small mushroom head rivets I hope that all those modellers who sanded their Airfix models smooth of rivets are duly repentant. 😀

Old Kodachromes never die………

I have many CD’s stored containing my general photos. Quite a few I cannot access because my new computer will not read them. Nor for that fact can friends computers read them!.

The problem may not be with the hardware. When CD’s came out they were announced as lasting for eternity. Later it was believed that they would last fifty years and later still for only ten years. Recently I have been told that data stored on CD’s and DVD’s may only last for five years. I found this out when I tried to open some old data files that I wanted to extract. They were about seven years old and had to be sent to a specialist data recovery firm.

All in jpeg Brian, I have asked quite a few individuals. One day someone will be able to read the damn things!

Contact a firm specializing in data retrieval. While mainly oriented toward dealing with fire/water/mechanical damage, they also are equipped to deal with some pretty archaic hardware/opsys, as many commercial customers don’t upgrade their systems very often.