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Part of the cowling for one of the motors for a B-25 bomber is assembled in the engine department of North American [Aviation, Inc.]'s Inglewood, Calif., plant

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Public domain photograph of a woman, female portrait, free to use, no copyright restrictions image - Picryl description

WWII color photographs. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs from the Library of Congress. The original images are color transparencies ranging in size from 35 mm. to 4x5 inches. Photographers working for the U.S. government's Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) between 1939 and 1944 made approximately 1,600 color photographs that depict life in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The pictures focus on rural areas and farm labor, as well as aspects of World War II mobilization, including factories, railroads, aviation training, and women working.

At the end of the 1920s, the United States boasted the largest economy in the world. With the destruction wrought by World War I, Europeans struggled while Americans flourished. Upon succeeding to the Presidency, Herbert Hoover predicted that the United States would soon see the day when poverty was eliminated. Then, in a moment of triumph, the stock market crash of 1929 touched off a chain of events that plunged the United States into the longest, deepest economic crisis of its history. The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the USA and the western industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. The depression is best understood as the final chapter of the breakdown of the worldwide economic order. As the depression deepened, governments tried to protect their reserves of gold by keeping interest rates high and credit tight for too long. This had a devastating impact on credit, spending, and prices, and an ordinary business slump became a calamity. What ultimately ended the depression was World War II. Military spending and mobilization reduced the U.S. unemployment rate to 1.9 percent by 1943. It is too simplistic to view the stock market crash as the single cause of the Great Depression: - The gold standard. Most money was paper, but governments were obligated, if requested, to redeem that paper for gold. This "convertibility" put an upper limit on the volume of paper currency governments could print. A loss of gold (or convertible currencies) forced governments to raise interest rates. - The best-known economists Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, blame the Federal Reserve for permitting two-fifths of the nation's banks to fail between 1929 and 1933. Since deposits were not insured then, the bank failures wiped out savings and shrank the money supply. From 1929 to 1933 the money supply dropped by one-third, choking off credit and making it impossible for many individuals and businesses to spend or invest. - Economist Charles Kindleberger sees depression as a global event caused by a lack of world economic leadership. According to Kindleberger, Britain provided leadership before World War I. It fostered global trade by keeping its markets open, promoted expansion by making overseas investments, and prevented financial crises with emergency loans. Between WWI and WWII wars no country did enough to halt banking crises, and the entire industrial world adopted protectionist measures in attempts to curtail imports. In 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, raising tariffs on dutiable items by 52 percent. The protectionism put an extra brake on world trade just when countries should have been promoting it.

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north american aviation inc airplane industry assembly line methods world war women employment bombers california inglewood transparencies color part motors bomber engine department engine department american aviation north american aviation inc plant ww 2 in color american workers in color economic and social conditions workers worker great depression 1939 end of great depression kodachrome interior factory b 25 mitchell b 25 b 25 bomber united states history library of congress
date_range

Date

01/01/1939
person

Contributors

Palmer, Alfred T., photographer
collections

in collections

American Workers in Color

WWII color photographs.

The Last Year of The Great Depression

1939 was the last year of The Great Depression.
place

Location

create

Source

Library of Congress
link

Link

http://www.loc.gov/
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on publication.

label_outline Explore Engine Department, North American Aviation Inc, Ww 2 In Color

Hillman Barge & Construction Company, Paul Thomas Boulevard, Brownsville, Fayette County, PA

Production. P-51 "Mustang" fighter planes. The accuracy of a milling machine operation is checked by an inspector in a machine shop at the Inglewood, California, plant of the North American Aviation. The casting being milled will be part of the landing gear of a P-51 fighter plane. This plant produces the battle-tested B-25 "Billy Mitchell" bomber, used in General Doolittle's raid on Tokyo, and the P-51 fighter plane which was first brought into prominence by the British raid on Dieppe

North American B-25 bomber is prepared for painting on the outside assembly line, N[orth] A[merican] Aviation, Inc., Inglewood, Calif.

A girl riveting machine operator at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant joins sections of wing ribs to reinforce the inner wing assemblies of B-17F heavy bombers, Long Beach, Calif. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F bomber is a later model of the B-17, which distinguished itself in action in the south Pacific, over Germany and elsewhere. It is a long range, high altitude, heavy bomber, with a crew of seven to nine men -- and with armament sufficient to defend itself on daylight missions

Operating a hand drill at the North American Aviation, Inc., a woman is in the control surface department assembling a section of the leading edge for the horizontal stabilizer of a plane

Kansas City, Kansas. Workmen assembling parts of a plane at the North American Aviation Inc. plant

Switch boxes on the firewalls of B-25 bombers are assembled by women workers at North American [Aviation, Inc.]'s Inglewood, Calif., plant

A noontime rest for a full-fledged assembly worker at the Long Beach, Calif., plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. Nacelle parts for a heavy bomber form the background

Working with the electric wiring at Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif

John Kelseh, blacksmith, at his forge in the blacksmith shop at the roundhouse, Rock Island R.R., Blue Island, Ill.

Assembling Liberator Bomber, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas

U.S. Marine Corps, bedding down a big barrage balloon, Parris Island, S.C.

Topics

north american aviation inc airplane industry assembly line methods world war women employment bombers california inglewood transparencies color part motors bomber engine department engine department american aviation north american aviation inc plant ww 2 in color american workers in color economic and social conditions workers worker great depression 1939 end of great depression kodachrome interior factory b 25 mitchell b 25 b 25 bomber united states history library of congress