Overview of the Collection
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Repository Name:
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Museum of History &
Industry
Sophie Frye Bass
Library
2700 24th Avenue East
Seattle, WA 98112
Phone: 206-324-1126
URL: http://www.seattlehistory.org
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Collection Number:
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1985.134
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Title:
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Life on the Homefront Oral History
Project collection
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Dates:
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1984-1985 (inclusive)
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Quantity:
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1.5 linear feet
3 boxes
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Languages:
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Collection materials are in
English.
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Summary:
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Oral history interviews with individuals
who lived in Seattle during World War II.
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Location of Collection:
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13a.4.2
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Historical Note
Seattle and King County, as the home of several war industries, the
center of a major Japanese population, and a coastal city, was the
quintessential homefront city. Executive Order 9066 caused the internment of
all local men, women and children of Japanese descent. Security concerns were
great, reflected in anti-submarine nets in Puget Sound, air raids and
blackouts, coastal patrols and Civic Air Patrol, even the camouflage of vital
defense industries such as Boeing. Seattle became a center for airplanes and
shipbuilding, and the work roles swelled with defense workers.
Seattle also experienced trends that were common across America.
During the war years, shortages affected every city. Food, housing,
automobiles, household appliances, all rubber products, and even some cosmetics
and dress items were in short supply. Rationing became a part of everyday
life.
Yet it was these very shortages that encouraged the spirit and strong
will that characterized the homefront. Throughout the war, the people on the
homefront never gave up. To counter the shortage of material, for instance,
dresses simply became shorter. When nylons were not available, women painted
their legs with makeup and lined them with eyebrow pencils to resemble
stockings. Responding to manpower shortages, women went to work in large
numbers and soon became their families’ chief wage earner while husbands and
fathers were overseas. From this point on, women dressed differently, acted
differently and played an expanded role in society.
Content Description
The Life on the Homefront Oral History Project was part of a major
exhibit at the Museum of History & Industry commemorating the 40th
anniversary of the end of World War II, “Life on the Homefront: Seattle and
King County During World War II.” The 1985 exhibit looked at the difficulties,
sacrifices and heroism of local residents at home during wartime. The project
was funded in part by a grant from Humanities Washington.
The 26 oral history interviews captures memories of wartime Seattle
from people who lived through it. Interviewees were selected for their
collective insight into World War II’s impact on morale, lifestyles, industry,
entertainment, and race relations. In this collection, there are interviews
with veterans, police officers, activists, entertainers, Japanese evacuees, and
war workers. All the interviews were conducted by Lorraine McConaghy.
The collection consists of analog audiocassettes, interview
transcripts, and other material, including biographical information, clippings,
and ephemera.
Arrangement
Interviews are arranged alphabetically.
Use of the Collection
Restrictions on Access The collection is open to the public by appointment.
Restrictions on Use The Museum of History & Industry is the owner of the materials in
the Sophie Frye Bass Library and makes available reproductions for research,
publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from MOHAI
before any reproduction use. The museum does not necessarily hold copyright to
all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may
require seeking additional authorization from the copyright owners.
Preferred Citation Life on the Homefront Oral History Project, Museum of History &
Industry, Seattle
Subjects
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online
catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or
places should search the catalog using these headings.
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| Seattle
(Wash.) |
| World War,
1939-1945 |
| World War,
1939-1945--African Americans |
| World War,
1939-1945--Japanese Americans |
Detailed Description of the Collection
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in
the collection.
Morris Alhadeff
and Jerry Ross oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 16 pages
Alhadeff and Ross discuss Victory Square – a war bonds and morale
building effort organized by numerous volunteers from civic and business
organizations during World War II that featured local and national
entertainers. They discuss various entertainments of the day from radio and
theater to burlesque.
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Dave Beck oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 16 pages
This interview starts with discussion of the negative impact of
the Great Depression on the trucking industry. Beck speaks at length about the
labor movement, ranging from the organizing of the California Teamsters in 1934
to the tactics of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The interview
ends with Beck’s faith that it is the common man who can make the difference.
File includes newspaper article “Fiesty Ex-Labor Leader Dave Beck
Doesn’t Regret His Past,” by Ellen Marks (newspaper and date unknown).
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Maurice Carlson
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 19 pages
During World War II, Maurice Carlson worked as a night shift clerk
for the Seattle police department. In this interview, he discusses his personal
and professional response to Pearl Harbor and World War II. He talks about
enforced blackouts, military encampments, Japanese internment, and manpower
issues. The interview covers crimes (liquor, prostitution, gambling, child
abuse and transience) and police practices (including the ‘bandit phone’).
Carlson also explains how he dealt with wartime rationing with carpooling, home
parties, Victory gardens and scrap metal drives. He recalls that Seattle shut
down for V-J Day. Overall, he has a positive opinion of Seattle during wartime
and believes many who came temporarily were decided stay on permanently.
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Mildred and
Parker Cook oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 copy
Transcript: 19 pages
This interview begins with discussion of the demographic make-up
of the Garfield High School community. The Cooks and the high school students
were “dazed” by the news of Pearl Harbor—and soon thereafter, all
Japanese-American students left the school for internment camps. Mr. Cook also
saw a shift in the African American community as newcomers joined the locally
born. Mr. Cook also discusses curriculum changes at the high school level
during World War II. He also trained an interracial singing group, The
International Trio. The Cooks also discuss Mrs. Cook’s volunteer work as a
first aid teacher, the impact of rationing, and the use of leg paint during
nylon shortages.
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Ewen Dingwall
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 16 pages
Ewen Dingwall was the executive secretary to Mayor Devin during
World War II. As such he had a hand in running the city. A thoughtful speaker,
Dingwall is well-read. He shares general memories of Japanese internment and
Civil Defense volunteering. He discusses wartime efforts to expand the Seattle
Planning Commission’s mission to include long range planning and the federal
government’s refusal to offer financial aid to mass transportation projects. He
discusses his role in making Seattle more cosmopolitan through his work on the
World’s Fair, which provided infrastructure (including the Opera House, the
Playhouse, the Exhibition Hall, and Coliseum) for local cultural events.
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Doris Eason
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 16 pages
In an informative and lively interview, Doris Eason shares her
perspective on developments in housing and race relations. She moved to Seattle
after the United States entered World War II. She set down roots through
volunteering with the YWCA and decided to stay when her husband followed his
work to California, ending the relationship. She speaks about the development
of wartime temporary and permanent housing projects, including Holly Park and
Yesler Terrace. She discusses her pursuit of racial integration through her
work at the Seattle Housing Authority, and what she saw of war work recruits’
experiences, black servicemen’s experiences, USO organizations, integration
activist organizations, and the return of Japanese-Americans to the Seattle
area. She feels her efforts toward racial integration in Seattle were
undermined by the assertive “Black is Beautiful” efforts of the 1960s.
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Howard Hurst
and Michael Pavone oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 19 pages
This colorful interview discusses Boeing technology and work
culture during the World War II era. Both men relay how luck (Hurst) and
diligence (Pavone) got them their jobs at Boeing. They discuss developments in
plane technology (including superchargers and fuel injection) and work
practices (including the shift from hand-made to assembly line production, the
impact of time and method studies on production work, and the recruitment and
training of unskilled labors.) They use the language of production lines:
“flight squawks,” “travelers,” “cabbage patch,” etc. They also speak to how the
introduction of women to Boeing plants changed the rough work culture.
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Chester
Kingsbury and Reverend Robert Shaw oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 20 pages
For Shaw and Kingsbury, the fight against the war began in 1925
when Frederick Libby, head of the National Council for the Prevention of War,
came to speak in Tacoma. They came to the peace movement due to their religious
convictions. Both anticipated an event like the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, and both responded to Pearl Harbor by trying to undermine the racism of
the American response. They discuss wartime issues such as religious organizing
for peace, controversy over military chaplains, pulpit advocacy of military
service, conscientious objectors, union activity, and consumer
cooperatives.
File also includes photocopies of a protest meeting flyer, of
three 1945 newspaper articles about protests at which Robert Shaw spoke, and of
World Peace Committee documents.
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Aki Kurose oral
history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 15 pages
Prior to Pearl Harbor, Aki Kurose felt like an American despite
being part of the Japanese-American community. She discusses how internment
camps undermined the traditional closeness of Japanese-American families and
the particular response of her own family to Pearl Harbor and internment at
Puyallup Assembly Center and later, Minidoka in Idaho. Later she went to Salt
Lake City as a domestic servant and completed a degree at a business college at
night. Kurose also relays her experiences as part of the first
Japanese-American family to return to Seattle – and the fact that her in-laws
chose never to return.
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Henry MacLeod
oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 14 pages
Henry MacLeod discusses the state of local journalism during World
War II. He recalls few decrying Japanese-American internment at the time.
MacLeod discusses the impact of rationing on personal consumption and on the
Seattle Times. MacLeod also describes
Seattle as a city during World War II and changes that occurred in journalism
during the war years.
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Harold and
Eileen Mansfield oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 17 pages
Mansfield discusses how the war started for Boeing in 1939 due to
European contracts; the camouflaging of the Boeing plant; workers at Boeing
(women, unions, training); product security; issues of product production,
including cooperative production in the airplane industry and improving
productivity with music; and the impact of Pearl Harbor on his personal
life.
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Robert
McAusland oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
1 audiocassette plus copy
Transcript: 22 pages
Robert McAusland was a twelve-year old boarding at Lakeside School
on the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He recalls airplanes, the
camouflaged Boeing plant, and the airplane crash at Frye Packing Plant. He
speaks about youth culture during the war and Seattle demographic geography. He
talks about the impact of rationing and rumors on youth.
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H.W. McCurdy
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 21 pages
H.W. McCurdy built Naval bases in Alaska and ships in Seattle
during the 1930s. He talks of the trials of running his business prior to and
during World War II. He discusses being under attack from the Japanese on
Kodiak Island. He speaks of Pearl Harbor, relations with the Soviet Union, and
the influence of unions.
The interview has quotes from McCurdy’s book
Don’t Leave Any Holidays.
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Lucile McDonald
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 17 pages
Lucile McDonald talks of how Pearl Harbor changed her life. As a
woman and a mother, it was expected that she volunteer – which inspired her to
find paying newspaper work again. She started back on as a copy reader, the
first female copy reader at the
Seattle Times. She speaks of the
rumors prevalent after Pearl Harbor, the difficulties of rationing, workplace
strains because of gender, and moving from Seattle to Denny Park.
McDonald reads from her letters from the era during this
interview.
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Wilfred Miller,
Nels Nelson, Roy St. Clair oral history interview
4 audiocassettes2 originals and 2 duplicates
Transcript: 42 pages
The interview begins with each man’s story of how he came to work
at Lake Washington shipyard. They speak about the changes war brought to
production, the shortage of Navy inspectors, worker wages, working conditions,
safety standards, transportation, women welders, a worker strike before Pearl
Harbor, union activity, goofing off at work, shipyard security, and wartime
entertainments, including shipyard prostitution.
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Frank Miyamoto
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes
Transcript: 14 pages
Miyamoto discusses the Issei experience including their slow
transition to a U.S. identity; the Nisei experience, including economic
discrimination, linguistic alienation; Kibei experience, including social
dislocation; Japanese immigrant world views; and experiences of discrimination
and accommodation.
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Frances Owen
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 17 pages
Frances Owen learned of Pearl Harbor on the radio. Soon
afterwards, her husband volunteered for service. She learned to be quite handy
in his absence, had a variety of extra people share her home, and volunteered
for children’s causes while her husband was away. She speaks of the racism of
the day and how war helped break covert racist attitudes. She discusses her
experiences on Mayor Devin’s Civic Unity Committee.
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Dr. Erroll
Rawson oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 14 pages
Erroll Rawson was a Seattle doctor who volunteered his skills on
the wartime homefront (including creating an emergency medicine system) and
maintained a private practice as World War II began. He speaks about medical
care in wartime Seattle area and racial unease. He also retells his brother’s
story of the Philippines during World War II, including imprisonment, and
jailbreak with the aid of local insurgents.
File also includes Rawson’s handwritten notes on war gardens,
Japanese demand for scrap metal, and rationing.
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G. Spencer
Reeves oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 15 pages
G. Spencer Reeves taught first aid and swimming during World War
II. He speaks about the University of Washington campus experience during the
war and justifies Japanese internment because of fear. He talks about volunteer
medical networks created for the war effort.
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Edith Robertson
oral history interview
2 audiocassettes
Transcript: 22 pages
Edith Robertson recalls the bombing of Pearl Harbor; getting a job
at the shipyard where her husband worked (without his help) as one of the first
female workers in the sheet metal department on the graveyard shift; female
worker resistance to wearing bandannas; workplace culture; her assumption that
her shipyard work would not last; Japanese internment; and changes in
fashion.
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Inez Sauer oral
history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 18 pages
Inez Sauer returned to Seattle to live in her parents’ small home
with three children during World War II because her husband could no longer get
rubber for his used tire company. She set out to find war work out of a sense
of patriotism and found a job at Boeing as a tool clerk. She speaks about
adjusting to factory life from a “gentle” upbringing, including a divorce from
her husband who didn’t want her to work; she also details what she saw as a
Boeing employee, including helping to uncover spies. She also discusses family
life and entertainment.
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Tomo Shoji oral
history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 18 pages
Tomo Shoji’s story begins with her parents’ arrival in the United
States and their work at a sawmill camp. Later her mother moved to Seattle and
set up a midwifery practice for the Japanese community. Shoji was in Los
Angeles during Pearl Harbor and internment, from which she was dismayed her
American citizenship did not protect her. She talks about discrimination,
fighting with her husband over returning to Japan (he was Kibei but she didn’t
want to go since she had never been there) and not believing that Japanese
behavior changed Caucasian attitudes for better or worse.
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Bernice Simet
oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 19 pages
Bernice Simet joined the Coast Guard SPARS (Women’s Reserve) and
worked as a recruiter and barracks manager during World War II. She chose not
to stay with the Coast Guard after the war but regrets losing the pension she
would have accrued.
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Marjorie Sotero
oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 18 pages
Marjorie Sotero speaks of her childhood family experiences as the
daughter of an inventive man in a traditional family isolated by racial
discrimination. She also tells of seeking work as a young African-American
woman; the dropping of racial barriers with the onset of war; service clubs
that entertained soldiers; segregated Camp Jordan; working as a USO junior
hostess; planning the first mixed race dance at Fort Lawton; and military
integration.
File also includes a photocopy of a photograph of Sotero and her
sister and photocopies of 2 clippings about Sergeant George Jordan and the
closing of Camp George Jordan.
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Olive Smith and
Jean Sprague oral history interview
2 audiocassettes1 original and 1 duplicate
Transcript: 23 pages
Olive Smith and Jean Sprague discuss wartime fashion, including
discussion of local department stores such as Frederick & Nelson, and the
shopping experience; the effect of wartime restrictions on clothing design;
women’s beauty routines; and other aspects of everyday life in wartime.
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Arline and
Letcher Yarbrough oral history interview
1 audiocassette
Transcript: 16 pages
The Yarbroughs discuss the black experience in Depression and
pre-war Seattle, including racism and segregation in the Armed Forces; the
reception of Southern black “newcomers” in the community looking for work
during the war; and integration in government agencies. Mr. Yarbrough discusses
his experience with discrimination and segregation in the Army. Mrs. Yarbrough
talks about her experience looking for clerical work in Seattle.
File also includes a color photograph of the Yarbroughs and
newspaper article “A woman of courage,” about Arline Yarbrough, written by Bob
Welch and published in the Journal-American, May 12, 1985.
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