Burners, New England Shipbuilding Corporation, South Portland, Maine, 1942-1945. Courtesy of the Maine Maritime Museum.
Burners, New England Shipbuilding Corporation, South Portland, Maine, 1942-1945. Courtesy of the Maine Maritime Museum.
"Burners" Winona Birmingham and Martha Cunliffe cut openings in steel according to the instructions painted on steel plates. The plates could then be pieced together to form such components as decks and bulk heads of destroyers. Shipyard management expressed their amazement at women's ability to master such "skilled operations [which] often involved their diligence, accuracy and patience on repetitive jobs."
Mrs. Cunliffe was from Houlton, while Mrs. Birmingham was a mother of two young children and the wife of a sawmill operator in Penobscot County's Stacyville Plantation. These two women exemplify how rural Mainers with family responsibilities traveled many miles daily or moved closer to the shipyards for work.