Describing Photos

Describing Electrical Factory Photograph 1945.

ROBIN FEUER

ENG274

ASSIGNMENT 3

October 31, 2014

This is a black and white photograph taken in 1945 at the Eagle Electric Company that was located in Long Island City. A large where house floor on a sunny summer day where the windows are open for fresh air and ventilation. Since the ceilings are very high, the lighting is not very good so there are drop lights at each work station in order for the workers to be able to see what they are doing better.

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Everyone is aware that their picture is being taken in the middle of their work day. Most of the workers had stopped what they were doing in order to look towards the camera person. The two women in the front, at the table behind the belt seemed to be too busy with what they were doing to stop for a few minutes.

All of the tables have large boxes that have been prepared already for each station for when their part of the assembly is done, the electrical parts that are being packaged are to be placed in them and ready for the next stage of the process. The work area is kept clean and organized so that everything runs smoothly and the risk of a fire hazard is kept to a minimum.

The women are wearing dresses with short sleeves or three quarters and the two men that are there, have white, short sleeve, button down shirts and dark pants. Regardless of the station they are in, they are wearing gloves as to not get ink on their hands or smear the lettering on the boxes. Most of the women are wearing aprons so they do not ruin their cloths.

Front and center from where the camera person is standing, there are two women of different ages and a man sitting on stools at the first work station. The young woman, in her early twenties and smiling brightly, as though she is happy to be there, is wearing a white dress and a headband to keep her hair out of her face. The woman next to her, who is a few years older, is just as happy and wearing a black dress with three quarter sleeves and an apron over her clothing. One of the two men in the room is sitting next to her. To their left are flat cardboard that they have been assembling into boxes. When they are done, they place the small boxes underneath the table by their feet where there are large cardboard boxes.

In front of them is a woman standing at a station where there is a large running belt that is about three feet high. She places the finished, electrical part, box in a large shipping box to be sent out.

There are two women standing behind the woman at the belt. They have stopped their work to stand together at their station. Behind where they are standing, there are boxes that have been assembled, labeled, and sealed ready to be shipped to their designated places. They are stacked neatly, and lined up in a way that divides the room in half with the temporary half wall. 

The station that is behind the large running belt, two women are working intensely to get the printing blocks set up. They are too busy to look up from what they are working on to pose for the picture. They are wearing darker color dresses and half aprons and with their gloves on. Their hair is pinned back so they could work without interference of hair falling to their face as they are bending over.

At the last station in that section, underneath the large window fan, the women are standing to pose for the picture. The second half of the room, most of the women stop what they were doing to get a little closer for the few minutes it takes the photographer to snap pictures. They are standing around as the second of the two men in the room is walking towards the front of the room. It seems as though he was caught off guard and he also stopped for the picture. The first station in the back of the room, the woman standing there is working on what she was doing instead of looking at the camera.

There is a white line in the middle of the floor to divide the room. This assembly room has been set up to use with precision. There is no waste. The war is just about over and women are working in place of the men that have either signed up to fight, or were drafted. This gave women the opportunity to go out and earn money for themselves rather than rely on their men. They had to help out. Women felt so much pride in what they were doing to help out with what they were doing.

Throughout World War Two, there are photographs of women working in the labor force. It showed society that women could do the same types of jobs that men could. When looking at these old photographs, anyone could see the pride and dedication on the faces of the women. There were not many men around to do the jobs. This assembly Electrical Plant is one example of many. There were two men in this picture in a room full of women in their twenties and thirties.

I love this picture because of the pride and dedication I saw in the women’s faces. There is no mistaking that though women did not join the service as fighters, the ones who were not nurses or entertainers stayed behind to make materials that were very much needed.