Maxwell Women Workers

[hddennis]

While looking up information on Maxwell's employment of women during WWI I stumbled across this picture that claims to be women on the assembly line. What is neat about the photo is you can clearly see this is a cutaway chassis and these women are being trained on the various parts they are about to encounter on their new job.

Wonder how long the girl on the left has before her derriere is on display to the whole factory after sitting on that juicy battery!

lots of neat details shown here.

Howard Dennis

[Guest BobD735]

Hi,

Your photo of the women working on the Maxwell chassis during WW I, brought to mind photos of other women shown working on lathes, in the machine shops, at the Maxwell Chalmers Company in Detroit during WW I.

The photos are shown in the book "The American Auto Factory", on pages 61 and 70.

Model 25 Maxwells are also shown rolling down the assembly line, on pages 62 and 71 (same source), and are incorrectly identified as Chalmers cars.

Bob

[hddennis]

Bob, Thanks for that reply, I'll see if I can't find a copy. I'm amazed at the quality of these old factory photos and how much details are shown on how the car was built when new.

I stumbled across the women war workers while looking for details on my Maxwell. It seems little was printed on this and it's completely overshadowed by the WWII "Rosie the Riveter" stories which led me to believe WWII was the first time it happened. I think history has short changed the WWI Women and their contributions and also the lengths the WWI factories went to accommodate the women workforce.

Howard Dennis

Edited March 15, 2010 by hddennis (see edit history)