World War II interrupted Chauncey Del French’s writing career when in 1942 he and his wife, Jessie, answered America’s urgent need for workers in the shipyards. The Frenches were among the tens of thousands of workers recruited by Henry Kaiser under the U.S. Maritime Commission for the nation’s wartime shipbuilding program. The memoir that Chauncey Del French began while working as a pipe fitter in the Kaiser shipyard in Vancouver, Washington, is a compelling firsthand account of how the war changed the lives of those at home. In addition to providing a world of detail about the process of building warships, French and his wife recount the many aspects of shipyard life–from shortages of valuable clothing such as overalls to the limits of privacy in company housing. Waging War on the Home Front provides a rare portrait of working-class life in a country just coming out of the Depression, and chronicles the profound cultural and social changes that took place during the war years–particularly the new opportunities for women in the workforce and the influx of African-American workers to the Northwest. More than fifty years after it was written, French’s memoir is now being published for the first time. To accompany the text, Lois Mack and Ted Van Arsdol have chosen and annotated more than 140 photographs, drawings, and paintings–many never before published–by many of the period’s most gifted artists, including some who also worked in the shipyards. Together with introductory essays by Rick Harmon, Northwest author and historian, and Margaret Bullock, associate curator of American art at the Portland Art Museum, the illustrations provide a rich historical and artistic context for thememoir. Engagingly written and abundantly illustrated, Waging War on the Home Front is certain to delight any reader with an interest in Northwest history, labor, home life, or art during the war years.
