Slacks and calluses : our summer in a bomber factory / Constance Bowman Reid ; illustrated by Clara Marie Allen ; introduced by Sandra M. Gilbert.

Originally published: Slacks and callouses. 1st ed. New York : Toronto : Longmans, Green & Co., 1944.

"In 1943 two spirited young teachers decided to do their part for the war effort by spending their summer vacation working the swing shift on a B-24 production line at a San Diego bomber plant. Entering a male-dominated realm of welding torches and bomb bays, they learned to use tools that they had never seen before, live with aluminum shavings in their hair, and get along with supervisors and coworkers from all walks of life. And they learned that wearing their factory slacks on the street caused men to treat them in a way for which their "dignified schoolteacher-hood" hadn't prepared them." "First published in 1944 and illustrated with humorous drawings, Slacks and Calluses is an on-the-spot account of how two women assumed the wartime roles that would change society, coping with traditional attitudes they encountered along the way. Constance Bowman tells of foremen who struggled futilely to enforce a rule requiring all women to wear caps; of young coworkers who wistfully imagined earning their high school diplomas; and of the bruises and cut fingers that she and Clara Marie Allen endured in making final installations to the "Liberator" planes that rolled off the Consolidated Vultee production line." "Bowman and Allen evoke in vivid detail the ambiguities, drama, and comedy of life on the home front during World War II."--Jacket.