⚓ Directory
PLAN GALLERY LX
GALLERY LX

The Arsenal

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.

Charles Horton Cooley
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.”
Dorothy Pruitt
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.”
Edward Soja
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.
🎧 A moment to consider
What will you carry out of this room?
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IFire and the Forest IIThe First Surplus IIIWater and Power IVThe Domesticated Animal VThe First Village VIThe Metal That Mattered VIIThe Grain Empire VIIIRoads and Rivers IXThe Silk Corridor XThe Monsoon Bargain XIWhy Rome Thinned XIIThe Classical City XIIIThe Maize Bargain XIVTerrace and Milpa XVThe City in the Lake XVIThe Classic Maya Question XVIIReading the Sky XVIIIA Hemisphere Without Horses XIXThe Heavy Plough XXThe Black Death XXIThe Caravan World XXIIThe Rice Revolution XXIIIWood and the Wall XXIVThe Little Ice Age XXVThe Columbian Exchange XXVIThe Sugar Island XXVIIThe Silver Mountain XXVIIIThe Wind That Made Empires XXIXFur, Fish and Frontier XXXThe First Global City XXXIThe Walking City XXXIICoal and the Clock XXXIIIGoing Up Rural Businesses XXXIVThe Cooled Room The Gerrymander The Income Pyramid XXXVThe New Mills XXXVIThe Company and the Charter XXXVIIThe Meeting Ground XXXVIIIThe Company Town XXXIXThe Town and the Common XLThe Invisible Arrival XLIThe Consumer Revolution XLIIThe Argument in Print XLIIIWho Was the Revolution For? XLIVThe Machine of Compromise XLVThe Grid Goes West XLVIThe Port City XLVIIThe War Itself XLVIIIThe First Party Fight XLIXRemoval LThe Factory Girls LIThe House Divided LIIReconstruction and Its Undoing LIIIThe Chosen Nation LIVThe Tenement and the Terrace LVThe Immigrant Ledger LVIThe Machine and the Ward LVIIWhy Buildings Rise LVIIIThe Reservation and the Allotment LIXThe Federal Blueprint LXThe Arsenal ◄ YOU ARE HERE LXIThe Subsidised Suburb LXIIThe Second Great Migration LXIIIThe Movement in the Street LXIVThe Bomb LXVThe Factory Closes LXVIThe Return Downtown LXVIIThe Sunbelt Bargain LXVIIIThe Worked Continent LXIXThe Hero and the Record LXXThe Reform Photograph LXXIThe Great Upheaval LXXIIThe Cotton Engine LXXIIIThe Corps of Discovery LXXIVThe Republican Experiment LXXVWho Counts? LXXVIThe Canal and the Rail LXXVIIThe Edsel LXXVIIIThe Transcontinental LXXIXThe Crash and the Line LXXXThe Census LXXXIThe Tower Again LXXXIIThe Screen and the Square LXXXIIIThe Literary Digest Poll LXXXIVUrban Renewal LXXXVThe Hardening Line LXXXVIThe Population Bomb LXXXVIINew Coke LXXXVIIIGalloping Gertie LXXXIXThe Question XCThe Index XCIThe Map XCIIThe Poverty Line XCIIIThe Normal XCIVThe Hawthorne Works XCVProhibition XCVIMoving to Opportunity XCVIIThe Obedience Studies XCVIIIThe Minimum Wage Fight XCIXAfter the Towers CThe Sword Rack at the Door CIThe First Light CIIThe Forge of Stars CIIIThe Rocky Ledger CIVThe Goldilocks Band CVThe Moon's Receipt CVIThe Deep Clock CVIIThe Living Spark CVIIIThe Oxygen Revolution CIXThe Drifting Map CXThe Great Dyings CXIThe Mammal's Wager CXIIThe Grasslands Bargain CXIIIThe Fire Keeper CXIVThe Language Leap CXVThe Painted Cave CXVIThe Long Migration CXVIIThe Dog at the Fire CXVIIIThe Ice Corridor CXIXThe Seed Contract CXXThe Village Ledger CXXIThe Writing Debt CXXIIThe City Threshold CXXIIIThe Metal and the Market CXXIVThe Plague Network CXXVThe Ocean Bridge CXXVIThe Silver Circuit CXXVIIThe Machine Threshold CXXVIIIThe Energy Bonanza CXXIXThe Population Curve CXXXThe Telegraph World CXXXIThe Great Acceleration CXXXIIThe Carbon Ledger CXXXIIIThe Information Threshold CXXXIVThe Genome Drawer CXXXVThe Anthropocene Question CXXXVIThe Next Threshold CXXXVIIThe Town Meeting CXXXVIIIThe Common and the Fence CXXXIXThe Sheriff and the Jury CXLThe School Board CXLIThe Charter CXLIIThe Petition CXLIIIThe Property Line CXLIVThe Ballot Box CXLVThe Ward Machine CXLVIThe Suffrage March CXLVIIThe Poll Tax Receipt CXLVIIIThe Recount CXLIXThe King's Two Bodies CLThe Parliament CLIThe Republic's Blueprint CLIIThe Federation Question CLIIIThe One-Party State CLIVThe Referendum CLVMarbury's Desk CLVIThe Fourteenth Amendment CLVIISeparate and Unequal CLVIIIThe Warren Bench CLIXThe Commerce Clause CLXThe Dissent CLXIThe Zoning Map CLXIIThe Boss's Ledger CLXIIIThe Bond Issue CLXIVThe Police Power CLXVThe Annexation Fight CLXVIThe Renewal Bulldozer CLXVIIThe Treaty Table CLXVIIIThe Embassy CLXIXThe Blockade CLXXThe Alliance CLXXIThe Assembly Floor CLXXIIThe Trade War CLXXIIIThe Question-Mark Tracks Emblematic Films — The Decade Panels The Government Lounge Rogues, Ruffians, and Rascals The Processing Hall — The Dairy Wing The Creamery — The Second Wing The Civil Rights Movement 1945–1975 The American Indian The Gallery of Man The Sobering Rooms The Teaching Ward The Pharmacology Cabinet The Pathology Gallery The Epidemiology Map Room
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