American workers making bombs, and then cars, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 1945

Description: 

Photograph. Two images show American workers making bombs and then cars during manufacturing reconversion at the end of the war. Official Caption: "Rome 8/29/45. American industry moves into reconversion program. Two American workers (upper photo) spot weld bomb fins in the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company in Philadelphia, in the eastern U.S. state of Pennsylvania, on August 16, 1945, the last day of their war jog, two days after President Truman announced Japan's unconditional surrender. On Aug. 17, on another floor in the same building, the two men (lower photo) begin work on side panels for automobiles for civilian use. On Aug. 18, President Truman order full mobilization of all government resources for promotion of swift and orderly reconversion of national economy from war to peacetime footing. Photo through U. S. I. S. Rome 43543-PPA. Approved by appropriate U.S. Authority (D List out)." Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 29 August 1945

Image Information

Donor: 
Dylan Utley
Accession Number: 
2012.019.597
Date: 
08/29/1945
Location: 
Hometown: 
Branch: 
Theater of Service: 
Unit: 
Campaign / Event: 
Home Front production (1942-45)
POW / KIA: 
Topical Subjects: 
Assembly-line methods--Pennsylvania
Automobile industry--Pennsylvania
Bombs--American--Pennsylvania
Collection Level: 
Items from the service of Isaac "Ike" Bethel Utley, who was born in Smith Mills, Kentucky on 3 March 1920. Ike enlisted in the Army Air Corps on 19 January 1942. He was shipped overseas to the European Theatre and worked with a supply division based out of the city of Naples with an office set up in a residential villa. Utley worked with the Office of War Information and used their photographs in news articles to inform soldiers of the progress of the war. At war's end, Utley returned stateside. A trunk full of over 800 photographs from the O.W.I. arrived on his doorstep from his office in Italy, sender unknown. This collection consists of those photographs.
Geography: 
Philadelphia
Latitude: 
39.950
Longitude: 
-75.150
Thesaurus for Graphic Materials: 
Assembly-line methods--Pennsylvania
Automobile industry--Pennsylvania
Bombs--American--Pennsylvania