The war economy did what a decade of relief could not, and it did it by deciding where factories went. Federal contracts moved millions of people, built new cities, and set the postwar map.
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
ON THE FLOOR
Dorothy Pruitt
Housewife, three ration books
“They called it the home front like it was a metaphor. It was arithmetic, and I did it every week.”
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
AM5-031 · The Arsenal — Open the drawer
A laminated identification badge and printed shift card issued to a Douglas Aircraft production worker during World War II, representing the rapid mobilization of civilian labor into defense manufacturing across the American West.
AM5-032 · The Arsenal — What is this thing?
A laminated identification badge issued to female aircraft assembly workers during World War II, marked with security clearance level and plant code. Represents the rapid mobilization of civilian labor into defense manufacturing and the geographic redistribution of industrial capacity.
AM5-033 · The Arsenal — Read the source
A typed federal contract amendment authorizing aircraft engine production at a newly constructed facility, exemplifying how wartime procurement decisions physically relocated industrial capacity and labor across the nation.
AM5-034 · The Arsenal — Map it / time it
A classified U.S. War Department map showing aircraft manufacturing facilities and contract allocations across the continental United States during 1942, color-coded by production volume and contractor.
AM5-035 · The Arsenal — Two sources disagree
A monthly production summary from Henry Kaiser's Richmond, California shipyard during 1942, documenting labor force growth, ship completions, and workforce composition—a primary record of how federal wartime contracts transformed a rural area into an industrial center.
AM5-036 · The Arsenal — State the claim
A numbered employee identification badge and daily work assignment from a major wartime shipyard, showing how federal contracts created new industrial centers and drew workers from across the nation to previously rural locations.
AM5-037 · The Arsenal — Take the other side
A representative page from federal procurement records showing contract awards to existing industrial firms in established manufacturing centers, documenting how wartime demand flowed to established capacity rather than creating new geographic centers.
AM5-038 · The Arsenal — Weigh it
Founding documents and master plan for Kaiser Permanente's Richmond, California shipyard medical facility, established to serve wartime workers in a region with no prior large-scale industrial base or healthcare infrastructure.
AM5-039 · The Arsenal — Build the answer
A regional distribution map showing U.S. military aircraft manufacturing contracts awarded 1940–1943, revealing the geographic concentration of defense spending and its role in reshaping industrial capacity and population centers.
AM5-040 · The Arsenal — For the file
A laminated worker ID from a West Coast shipbuilding facility, 1942–1945, representing the rapid mobilization of labor into federally contracted war production that reshaped regional demographics and industrial geography.
AM5-041 · The Arsenal — Go and look
A typed federal procurement notice awarding manufacturing contracts to a regional factory, exemplifying how the War Department's site-selection decisions redistributed industrial capacity and labor across the nation between 1940 and 1945.
AM5-042 · The Arsenal — Now, today
A standardized federal lease document authorizing private factory construction at government expense during wartime industrial mobilization, exemplifying how contract placement decisions physically relocated American manufacturing and population.
AM5-043 · The Arsenal — Teach it back
A numbered employee identification badge from Kaiser Richmond Shipyard (California, 1942–1945), representing the rapid workforce mobilization and geographic concentration of federal war contracts that transformed rural areas into industrial centers and reshaped American settlement patterns.
AM5-044 · The Arsenal — The other place
Daily production record from Henry Kaiser's Richmond, California shipyard, documenting Liberty Ship construction rates that transformed a rural area into a major industrial center during wartime mobilization.
AM5-045 · The Arsenal — One object, close
A documentary photograph of the Kaiser Richmond Shipyard in Richmond, California, 1943, showing the scale of federal wartime industrial production and the physical transformation of a rural area into a major manufacturing center within months.
The Turret Lathe, Bantam, 1942
A man at a turret lathe in a Connecticut aircraft-parts plant, 1942 - and the government photographer's caption is about his house: one of the first families into the new war workers' homes at Bantam, up from a furnished room in Torrington, with new furniture bought on the installment plan.
From the gallery’s own wall — “AM5-031 · The Arsenal — Open the drawer”.