Photographs: 40 M-M M2 Gun Carriage. 1943

Photographs: 40 M-M M2 Gun Carriage [title from cover]. Baltimore, MD: Koppers Co. Bartlett Hayward Division; J.H. Schaeffer & Son, Photographers, [1943].

Oblong 4to. 63 linen-backed photographs, photographer’s stamp verso with typed labels identifying date, production, and part details; each 8 x 9.75 in.; cloth boards with metal posts, stamped title, date written in ink on fore-edge of (open) spine; minor rubbing, photos near fine.

Art and industry meet in this superb photographic album with numerous images of wartime production needs fulfilled by women and African-American machinists at the Bartlett Hayward factory in Baltimore, Maryland. The historic Baltimore munitions manufacturer was purchased by Koppers in 1927 and at the end of 1941 it was mobilized to produce the 40 MM M2 anti-aircraft gun carriage used by most of the Allies in WWII. By 1943, manufacturing had reached full capacity at the site; more than 2270 carriages were produced there before the end of the war. The industrial boom led to a new and tumultuous era for Baltimore, whose politics were transformed by emerging but fragile coalitions between powerful labor unions and organizations like the NAACP.

The album, possibly used for sales, offers photographs of women operating enormous and complex milling machines, preparing the chassis, drilling, and assembling the carriages with male machinists on the line. There are images included of the finished 40 MM M-2 gun, along with blueprints, photographs modified by blue prints, and sophisticated commercial photography of Koppers machine parts. Altogether a remarkable example of modern industrial photography, joining the competing needs of corporate sales, public relations, and national propaganda.

Not recorded in OCLC.

SOLD