Build Em By The Mile Cut Em Off By The Yard

"This book is about a time when millions of Americans put their hearts, minds, and bodies into a clearly recognized goal, defeating the forces of Germany and Japan. The stories of the people who accomplished this are a reminder of the potential of this nation to rise up and meet a challenge. The Second World War is long over [but] once again, vital challenges face us. When they seem overwhelming and when the task seems as though it might be too much for us, we can turn to the example of America's World War II home front and in particular to the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California." - Congressman George Miller

Cynical young gossip columnist Jane Benjamin joins FDR’s Office of War Information, a propaganda unit, to find a Wendy-the-Welder poster girl to urge more women to the shipyard work essential to America’s winning World War II—and, incidentally, to make herself into the new Hedda Hopper. But somebody doesn’t want those women at work. During a five-day contest to beat the world speed record for building a liberty ship, Jane investigates the lives of the first women welders and learns more about her flyboy former lover’s secret post–Pearl Harbor mission—and her cynicism begins to melt. But when inspectors find and publicize a series of flaws in the contest-week welding, the women welders are blamed. Worse, two poster girl candidates are killed. Are they being sabotaged by a belligerent male shipyard supervisor? The industrialist shipyard owner with a history of controlling women? Or someone else trying to diminish the success of the US liberty ship program? To find out, Jane must choose between her professional ambition and service to the women welders—before the murderer harms another girl and America’s best chance of winning the war.

How World War II changed America and the World In Mighty Endeavor: The American Nation and the Second World War historian Blaine Browne provides a highly readable introduction to the war’s military course and its domestic consequences. World War II represented a major transformative event for America, laying the foundations for a modern postwar superpower. Browne chronicles the political, diplomatic, military, economic, and social developments from the end of World War I to the Cold War and economic boom of the postwar years. Each chapter features opening and closing biographies of individuals, some famous, some forgotten, who helped shape the war effort. The profiles represent a wide variety of Americans, civilian and military, men and women, and representing diverse races and ethnicities. Readers who recall the war years to those students studying it for the first time will find The Mighty Endeavor a superb gateway to a pivotal period of American and world history.

Praise for the previous edition: "This fun-to-read source will add spice for economics and business classes..."—American Reference Books Annual "...worthy of inclusion in reference collections of public, academic, and high-school libraries. Its content is wide-ranging and its entries provide interesting reading."—Booklist "A concise introduction to American inventors and entrepreneurs, recommended for academic and public libraries."—Choice American Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Business Visionaries, Revised Edition profiles more than 300 important Americans from colonial times to the present. Featuring such inventors and entrepreneurs as Thomas Edison and Madame C. J. Walker, this revised resource provides in-depth information on robber barons and their counterparts as well as visionaries such as Bill Gates. Coverage includes: Jeffrey Bezos Michael Bloomberg Sergey Brin and Larry Page Michael Dell Steve Jobs Estée Lauder T. Boone Pickens Russell Simmons Oprah Winfrey Mark Zuckerberg.

List of members in vols. 1-24, 38-54, 57.