A City At War: Milwaukee Labor During World War II

by Richard L. Pifer

Overview

Milwaukeeans greeted the advent of World War II with the same determination as other Americans. Everyone felt the effect of the war, whether through concern for loved ones in danger, longer work hours, consumer shortages, or participation in war service organizations and drives. Men and women workers produced the essential goods necessary for victory—the vehicles, weapons, munitions, and components for all the machinery of war. But even in wartime there were labor conflicts, fueled by the sacrifices and tensions of wartime life. A City at War focuses on the experience of working men and women in a community that was not a wartime boom town. It looks at the stands of the CIO and the AFL against low wartime wages, and at women in unionized factories facing the perceptions and goals of male workers, union leaders, and society itself. Here is a social history of wartime Milwaukee and its workers as they laid the groundwork for a secure postwar future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870204821
Publisher:	Wisconsin Historical Society
Publication date:	03/07/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	228
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Richard L. Pifer is director of the Reference and Public Services Bureau of the Library-Archives Division of the Wisconsin Historical Society. He has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE Industrial Giant-Ready for War I CHAPTER TWO Unity and Tension on the Home Front 17 CHAPTER THREE The Struggle for Economic Security 45 CHAPTER FOUR Worker Militancy and Wartime Industrial Conflict 87 CHAPTER FIVE The Response to Women Workers 123 CHAPTER SIX War's End I53