The Packard Rosies of World War II

For Women’s History Month, I thought it might be interesting to search the PPG Vault for photos of women with Packards.  I was pleased to find that women did more than just own Packard cars.  They actually played a variety of important roles in the history of the Packard Motor Car Company and they are well represented in our photograph collection.  But it was the role women played at Packard during WWII that captured my interest.

Nearly everyone has heard of Rosie the Riveter, the woman who became the face of women workers during WWII.  She was part of a campaign to recruit American women to replace the men who left defense industry jobs to join the armed forces.  During the war, when Packard switched from automobile manufacturing to aircraft and marine engine production at the East Grand Boulevard plant in Detroit, the company hired hundreds of women to fill jobs. The Rosies of the Packard Motor Car Company made significant contributions to the war effort.

One of these Rosies was Martha Carlson Phelan.  Mrs. Phelan was a PT boat engine inspector at the Packard plant.  She came up with a way to speed up the engine production process and became the first woman war worker in Detroit to win the War Production Board (WPB) Award “of Individual Production Merit.”  The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, flew to Detroit in January 1943 to personally congratulate Mrs. Phelan (below).

The WPB was established in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  The Board was tasked with directing the conversion of the nation’s industries to war work.  It also allocated materials needed for war production and set up the rationing of gasoline, metals, rubber, and other items essential to the war effort.  It was dissolved at the end of the war in 1945.

While in Detroit in 1943, Mrs. Roosevelt also paid a visit to another Packard worker, Bernice Palmer, who worked in the aircraft department that produced Rolls Royce airplane engines (below).  Mrs. Palmer had suggested several shortcuts for engine manufacturing output that were accepted by management.  She won the Packard “Work to Win Wings Award” for her ideas.

After the war, most of the women workers returned to their prewar roles as homemakers, secretaries, sales clerks, and other occupations deemed suitable for women.  But their contributions to the war effort have not been forgotten or diminished.  In later years, as more women entered the workforce, Rosie the Riveter went on to become the enduring iconic image of the working woman.