Woman Testing Ammunition at Twin Cities Ordnance Plant, circa 1942
The plant was located in New Brighton, Minnesota and was an earlier proposed site of the new Minnesota Vikings Stadium. Many women worked at the plant during World War II, they were integral in the manufacture of the weapons and ordnance needed for the successful conclusion of the war.
Article on the current exhibit in Special Collections on Women in World War II by Mary Treacy. The exhibit was created by Special Collections intern and HCL employee Lindsay Keating. If you want to browse the World War II poster collection you can go here.
State Theater, WWII Brownout, February, 1945
Theatergoers had to find their movies in the dark during the brownout. The brownout was lifted after V-E day, May 9, 1945.
Great Northern Deport, WWII Brownout, February, 1945
The brownout to save coal instituted in the Twin Cities resulted in a 2.5% reduction in electricity consumption.
The penalty for not complying with the brownout was having your electricity cut off by Northern States Power. We did not find much evidence of revolt - a J.B. Low who ran a tavern at 2730 Franklin Ave. E. refused to obey until NSP threatened to shut off his power.
Brownout on Hennepin Avenue, February 1945
Block E is in the foreground with the Great Northern Market and the 620 [Hennepin] Club, which was known for it’s turkey dinners and it’s owner Max Winter. Winter went on to be an owner of the Minnesota Vikings and was team president from 1965-1987.
Due to wartime coal shortages, brownouts and energy conservation were instituted in February 1945 in Minneapolis. The brownout provisions prohibited the use of outdoor electrical advertising, promotional lighting and decorative and display lighting.
Here is an editorial from the February 2, 1945 Minneapolis Tribune:
The loop isn’t going to be so bright for a time, at least until the coal shortage is eased, but our experience with the brownout to date give no suggestion that traffice will be seriously affected. Still there is no denying Nicollet and Hennepin will be darker and darkness does add to transportation hazards. Autoists and pedestrians alike must have a keener awareness of the possibilities that reduced vision entail.
How much coal the brownout will save is problematical. Window lighting and electrical advertising are however conspicuous examples of coal consumption that could be dispensed with, and if home dwellers and office workers were to be asked to make a sacrifice of temperature these manifest consumers of coal had to be curtailed.
The real coal savings will be in the homes, the office buildings and factories, where there is a large and continuous wastage. One need but to look out the window down town to note the evidences of unskillful firing as shown by the black thunder clouds of smoke pouring out of the chimneys in every direction. This is a serious waste of fuel in addition to being dirty, unhealthy and certainly unaesthetic.
Home dwellers are equally wasteful of fuel, and although their individual failures are small the aggregate loss is great. Their total fuel consumption draws heavily on the fuel storage. Better firing and maintaining temperatures at a comfortable, if not luxurious, level will save much more coal than extinguishing electric advertising devices and store windows.
Women in the War Effort during WWII
We have a new display on World War II that focuses on women at home (canning, victory gardening) and at work (Rosie the Riveter, women in the military). It was created by our intern Lindsay Keating. This poster is from our Kittleson World War II Poster Collection.
This display showcases the way patriotism was promoted towards women in WWII propaganda posters. Women were either marketed to as homemakers or as possible replacement workers for men. The homemaker posters reinforced women’s traditional role as domestic homemaker and cook. The worker posters sought to pull women into manufacturing out of sheer need due to so many men being overseas. They appealed to women’s sense of civic duty. When women came to manufacturing jobs in droves, it proved that they were capable of much more than previously imagined.
“Anti-Blackout” Flying Suit, Munsingwear, 1945
Caption attached to photo from the Minneapolis Tribune:
THE ANTI-BLACKOUT FLYING SUIT is modeled here by Kenneth R. Larson (center), 5153 Thirtieth avenue S., Munsingwear industrial engineer, and Charles W. Pauly, 165 Peninsula road, Munsingwear mechanical engineer. At right, Frances Balck, 3028 Fremont avenue S., helps zip up the suit for Larson while Pauly “blows up” the gear.
Towards the end of World War II warplanes were getting fast enough to put significant g-forces on the pilots. G-suits like the one above would allow pilots to stay alert and conscious as the gravity forces would try to force the blood away from the pilot’s head during high-g maneuvers. The g-suit would put pressure on the legs and abdomen, restricting blood flow away from the brain and eliminating the possibility of the pilot “blacking out” during flight.
November 28, 1943: Allied Leaders Meet at Tehran Conference
On this day in 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met together for the first time in Tehran, Iran to commit to an eastern front offensive against Nazi Germany and to discuss the plans for postwar Germany.
During World War II, Allied leaders had many ways to stay in contact, but there was nothing like meeting in person to ensure that a point was adequately stressed, to forge a friendship, or to understand how to best manipulate the other man.Explore WWII: Behind Closed Doors’ World War II conferences timeline, which analyzes in detail the objectives and outcomes of each conference between the Allied leaders.
Staffelalbum der Herzstaffel, 1943
A German Luftwaffe (air force) unit history chronicling the invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. This is from our Kittleson World War II Collection.
This unit history mostly chronicles the unit’s time in the Ukraine and Russia. It also features candid shots of everyday life of the unit and some photos of the people in the occupied territory. The page above loosely translates to “The country and its inhabitants.” This unit history only covers the victorious part of the war for the Germans, after 1942 they were fighting a defensive battle against a revived Soviet army that defeated and conquered Germany in 1945.
Resonance the Odyssey of the Bells (by creagz)
Above is a 10 minute excerpt of a film about a interesting piece of World War II and Minnesota history. It was recently shown on TPT. In 2007 Paul Creager, it’s creator won the emerging filmmaker award at Minnesota’s Greatest Generation film festival.
Its the story of temple bells - quite often the treasures of Japanese cities, that were tragically melted down for ordnance during World War II. In 1947, Duluth received a large Buddhist Temple Bell as a war trophy from the USS Duluth. Mayor George D. Johnson was then faced with a difficult decision: keep the bell, or return it to Japan. This is the story of reconciliation between former enemies and the development of a sister city relationship between Duluth and Ohara, Japan.
Most dispatches are from librarians at the James K. Hosmer Special Collections. Special Collections' Minneapolis History Collection covers an extensive array of materials on city history, including thousands of photographs, clippings, documents, books, programs, reports, yearbooks and hundreds of archival collections. Special Collections also houses several other collections on World War II, 19th century literature, the Abolitionist movement, Mark Twain, and the History of Books and Printing. You can visit Special Collections at the Minneapolis Central Library. Hennepin County Library includes 41 libraries. More than 5 million books, CDs and DVDs in 40 world languages. Almost 1800 public computers. One great system serving 1.2 million residents of Hennepin County. We're on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, too.
