While conducting research at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library in Portland, Oregon, I searched the name “Lionberger.” One name appeared: “Mabel Lionberger,” my grandaunt by marriage. Up popped a photograph showing her decked out in a complete welder’s outfit, soot smeared across her face. Removed from her by generations and later geographically, I’d not heard about her war production contribution. I was hooked, wanting to know more about her experience working as a woman welder in a shipyard during World War II. The result of that discovery, along with the subsequent discovery of a woman named Augusta Clawson, is this book.
In 1943, Special Agent Augusta Clawson of the U.S. Office of Education was assigned to work with industries and employment agencies preparing and training women for jobs in war production factories.
Working in the shipyards presented an opportunity to show the world that women were not only intellectually strong and able to learn–and master–skills required to perform complex tasks but that they possessed the inherent will and stamina to perform work traditionally done by men.
Clawson’s special agent position became clandestine when she was sent to the shipyard on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon, with an extraordinary assignment. Without identifying the true nature of her role, she was to present herself as one of the many women traveling to work in the shipyards, so that she could observe an unfiltered representation of the world of women welders. Her goal was to learn why some women—especially the welders—were quitting after only a short time on the job. The full story of her instrumental role in establishing improved training and safety guidelines for the women laboring to build America’s ships has not been told—until now.
…screenplay Wayward Warrior, based on her husband’s Vietnam service, was a semi-finalist for the FilmMakers International Screenwriting Awards. She once served as a personal interest story reporter for the Washington State Employee Intranet. She is the author of Mercy and Madness: Dr. Mary Archard Latham’s Tragic Fall from Female Physician to Felon, the essay “A New Dawn” published in the anthology Chocolate for a Woman’s Courage (under the name Froehlich), and poems published in college literary reviews. She lives in Spokane, Washington, with her husband, Tom.
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