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Hunter, Vera (audio interview #3 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the final interview with Vera Hunter, conducted in the living room of the small tract house in Lakewood, which she shares with her daughter. Although she was more relaxed by this interview and spoke her mind plainly, the interviewer continued to feel that her rapport was somewhat tenuous. 6/28/1980
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- 2021-08-23
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- *** File: rrrvhunter8.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-4:52)... Hunter arrived at the plant about an hour before her shift started at 4:00 p.m., and during that time usually joined her co-workers at a coffee shop or the Lockheed cafeteria where they sat and talked before their shift. In addition to food, the cafeteria also sold clothes and jewelry. At 4:00 p.m. she reported to her work station, laid out her tools, and "started banging away." Most the time, she did not see or talk to her supervisor until half way through her shift. She talks about meeting a supervisor on her first day at Lockheed. He assigned her to a department, demonstrated the work she would be expected to perform, and introduced her to the crew. It was up to the crew to familiarize her with the equipment and her duties. (4:52-5:31)... During the war, production was steady. After the war, there were occasional production lulls when certain models were phased out. During those lulls, employees were placed on "idle time." (5:31-7:19)... Most of the men at Lockheed enjoyed having women in the plant. She recalls there being one man who resented women. He displayed his disdain by trying to order the women around. Hunter worked with a particularly spunky woman who constantly argued and teased this man to the point that he quit working at the plant. (7:19-10:02)... Hunter believes that if a man teased a woman it was because she "asked for it." Overall, the men at Lockheed were nice and decent to work with. One man liked to lighten the mood by shooting small rivets at women when they were bent over. This only bothered one woman that she knew of. The rest of her co-workers thought it was funny. Prior to returning to Lockheed in 1951, Hunter worked at a bank with a woman who was employed at Douglas during the war. In talking about defense work, this woman told Hunter that it was a "dirty, rough, hard life." Hunter never felt this way about the years she spent at Lockheed. (10:02-10:47)... There was never any time to play games and socialize during work hours. (10:47-11:21)... Hunter felt tired after her shifts now and then, but once she got on the bus and rode towards home she started to feel rejuvenated. (11:21-12:07)... Working at Lockheed broadened her outlook on life because it gave her an opportunity to meet new people from all over the country who had different attitudes and opinions. (12:07-15:15)... Hunter describes an incident when she was injured on the job. People wore safety goggles to protect their eyes from injuries. There also were restrictions on wearing jewelry because it could damage the airplane or get caught in the machinery. She once warned a young man not to wear his chain to work, but he did not listen to her. A short time later, the chain got caught in his drill motor. (15:15-18:32)... She cannot recall if the machinery was labeled with warnings signs, indicating that most people knew what machines were dangerous. Hunter describes an incident involving a woman who was injured while operating a riveting machine that was used for cones and flat pieces of material. Some employees also used a magnetic riveting gun that signaled a bucking bar every time a rivet was shot into a panel. (18:32-20:18)... Hunter worked at Lockheed for two years during the war. Engineers and people with less seniority were the first to be laid off at the end of the war. She stayed at Lockheed for about a year working on the jet program. After the program was set up, Lockheed laid off another mass of employees and she was one of the first to go. (20:18-23:03)... Hunter describes the celebration at Lockheed and on the streets of Los Angeles the day VJ-Day was declared. (23:03-28:41)... Most of the people on her crew with seniority remained at Lockheed after the war. They started working on the jet program before the war ended and production was going well. When she started at Lockheed, she "figured it was a wartime job and I expected it to end." When she made it through the first layoff, she decided to stay at the plant until she was laid off because she thought quitting would look bad on her work record. When she was laid off a year after the war ended, she was both sad and relieved because she was tired of her husband nagging her to quit. End of tape. *** File: rrrvhunter9.mp3 (0:07-0:41)... Hunter discusses cost-plus contracts at Lockheed during the war. (0:41-3:22)... Hunter was sad after she was laid off from Lockheed because she had to say good bye to a lot of her co-workers. Her immediate plans were to go home and resume her domestic responsibilities. She had no intentions of working again as long as her husband was alive. For the next five years, she stayed home and begrudgingly entertained in-laws. Her husband died in 1947 and she spent the next couple of years dealing with death and struggling with some illnesses. Around 1949, she decided to return to the work force. She worked as a housecleaner for a doctor's wife and then got a job at bank. She was working there when she received a recall notice from Lockheed. (3:22-5:34)... She originally applied for a job at the bank as a key punch operator, but was hired to work as a coin counter in the vault instead. There was a ceiling on how much money she could make at the bank and her pay was far lower than what she made at Lockheed. (5:34-6:14)... After her husband died, she had her tonsils and some teeth removed. She developed septic poisoning and was sick for quite awhile. She should have had these procedures done earlier, but "with the Depression and the war, I could not manage it." (6:14-13:28)... Hunter reapplied at Lockheed about a year before she was recalled to the plant. She was told that there were no jobs and to send in a new application every six weeks. She also applied, and was hired, at North American but never actually worked in the plant because Lockheed told North American to release her because she would be rehired at Lockheed in the near future. She was relieved when Lockheed sent her a telegram asking her to come back to work because she was tired of the work environment at the bank. She went to Lockheed on a Saturday afternoon and was told to report to work the following Monday. She was one of five women who were hired as a test to determine "whether it would be worth while to rehire women." (13:28-18:23)... When she was recalled to Lockheed in 1951, she was required to fill out some paperwork and take a physical examination. She was hired as a general assembler on the T-33 trainers. She applied for an upgrade to electrical installation and worked there until she was laid off. It is unclear when she was laid off and when she returned to Lockheed. After electrical installation, she was transferred to the day shift to work in "mock up" or new development. She did not like this position because she was confined to a small work space with a bunch of catty women. She requested a downgrade to get out of this department and was transferred to Building A1 and placed on the swing shift. When the company went through another lay off, she was downgraded to wire fabrication. She worked in this section for three months and retired in 1971. (18:23-21:04)... When Hunter returned to Lockheed in 1951, there were only two other women in her department, both of whom were rehired with her. There were women scattered throughout the plant who worked as solders or in the office. Hunter and the other four women were recalled because they had excellent work records. They were rehired "as a test to see whether they could carry on and if they could carry on then [Lockheed] would hire more women." Hunter felt good about being a model worker for women and didn't feel any pressure. (21:04-22:18)... She discusses the changes, or lack thereof, at Lockheed when she returned in 1951. (22:18-24:44)... Hunter believes that laws against gender discrimination in the workplace resulted in Lockheed eventually hiring a proportionate number of women. The men continued to handle the heavier jobs, as they had done during the war. However, there was a point when men balked at the lifting restrictions for women and "began to holler that if a woman could not lift it then she should get out." Women moved into more electrical work after the war because "they found out that women made better electricians than men." Hunter believes that women returned to the work force after the war so that they could afford to purchase more consumer goods. End of tape. *** File: rrrvhunter10.mp3 (0:06-0:51)... Hunter expresses an interest in reviewing and receiving a transcript of her interviews. (0:51-1:57)... Hunter explains that men and women in production work were placed on a fairly equal footing after the war. More was expected of the women who returned to Lockheed in the 1950s. She reiterates the changes in the lifting restrictions for women, indicating that women who could not fulfill the new lifting guidelines were either downgraded or laid off. (1:57-3:12)... There were a lot of minorities at Lockheed when Hunter returned to the plant in 1951. However, she did not notice as many Asians in the plant as there had been during the war because they tended to "follow a different trade." (3:12-8:28)... Hunter remarried in 1955. She met her husband at Lockheed when the two worked near each other in the cabin section. He liked to spend a lot of money on entertainment and "I had to draw the line there because he was spending my money too." Their weekly entertainment expense after that was going to a wrestling match in San Bernardino. They also took quite a few vacations to Colorado and the Midwest. Her husband was laid off from Lockheed in 1959, after which he worked several different jobs, including a shoe salesman and a security guard. His health began to fail and Hunter placed him in a nursing home just after she retired in 1971. She did not have a lot of time for social activities while she was at Lockheed. Most of her time outside of work was spent taking care of her home in Los Angeles. (8:28-11:41)... Her daughter married in 1945 and had a child in 1947. Hunter once again discusses her husband's health problems and the reasons why she placed him in a nursing home. He died there in 1973. (11:41-14:20)... She discusses her activities after she retired, indicating that she sold her home in Los Angeles in 1978 and moved to Long Beach to live with her daughter who also was a widow. Her daughter is responsible for the yard work and Hunter handles everything else around the house. Her daughter works in the psychopathic ward at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. (14:20-16:56)... When Hunter remarried, she opened a joint bank account with her new husband. This arrangement did not last for too long because he spent all of their money. She decided it was best for both of them to have their own accounts so that he would spend his own money and not hers. Looking back, she realizes how things have changed for women because "it use to be the husband would go out and collect his wife's check, but they brought that to a screeching halt." Hunter never had any problems opening up her own checking or credit card accounts and she was never required to have her husband's signature on any of those accounts, stating, "I was the one that was independent. He didn't own anything." (16:56-19:41)... Hunter reflects upon her work at Lockheed during the war, noting "...It was like opening up a new world." Working at Lockheed broadened her outlook on life because it exposed her to people and new ideas. There are certain things that change a person's life and for her it was the war and working about so many different people. (19:41-25:02)... Hunter discusses the tools she used at Lockheed. She believes that the prolonged use of this equipment resulted in her developing arthritis in her hands and fingers. She does not sew or crochet as much as she use to because of these problems. Whenever she does any kind of project around the house that requires her to use her hands for a long period of time, it takes her awhile to recover from the numbness that she experiences in her thumbs. (25:02-27:06)... Since the war, "it is a matter of course that women do all kinds of work. " During the war, however, it was quite a different thing to see women working in defense. (27:06-28:28)... Hunter talks about her plans for the future, indicating that she prefers to take one day at a time rather than looking ahead and worrying what might happen next. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Vera Hunter was working as a chambermaid and janitor in Port Hueneme before getting a job as an assembler at Lockheed Aircraft. The last of eight children, born in Colorado, Hunter was raised by her paternal grandparents following here father's death while she was still an infant. She married when she was nineteen, and worked outside the home intermittently, doing occasional day work as a domestic. She and her husband moved to California during the Depression. Hunter retuned to full-time homemaking when she was laid off after the war, and then worked at various jobs, until 1951, when she returned to Lockheed, working there until she retired in 1971. Three interviews were conducted with Hunter in the living room of the small suburban tract home, where she lives with her daughter. Hunter was often distant at the beginning of an interviews, though at other times she was more relaxed and spoke her mind plainly. TOPICS - daily routine; men's attitudes towards women at Lockheed; impact of war work on her life; work injuries; work clothing; safety features; riveting and bucking equipment; VJ-Day celebrations; postwar layoffs; postwarcost plus contracts; postwar layoffs; domesticity; husband; postwar work history; reapplication to Lockheed in 1949-50; application at North American; recall to Lockheed; production in 1951; women in 1950s Lockheexpectations for women in production in the postwar years; attitude towards lifting restrictions for women; postwar work force demographics; second husband and his health problems; marital relationship; social life
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