WOMAN WELDER who worked in the World War II shipyards in Portland and Vancouver, Wash.

Group honored for technical upgrade of local Rosie the Riveter video oral history

By Jewish Review

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The Northwest Women’s History Project, which includes several Jewish women, will be honored Oct. 27 by the national Oral History Association for its having released on DVD a technically advanced version of its 1981 production of “Good Work Sister! Women Shipyard Workers of World War II: An Oral History.”

“Good Work Sister!” focuses on the women who worked in the shipyards in Portland and Vancouver, Wash., building ships to meet the wartime demand for vessels, most notably Liberty Ships.
   
“Good Work Sister!” was first produced in 1981 as a slide-tape show including interviews of more than two dozen women who worked in local shipyards during World War II. 
   
In 2006, NWHP worked with Ian McCloskey of the non-profit Northwest Documentary Arts and Media to remake the show, taking advantage of technological advances to improve the sound and visual quality, as well as adding motion for the DVD version.
   
“Women coming of age today are largely ignorant of a past where women’s work opportunities were so limited that newspaper want ads were separated by gender, and women were rarely considered for jobs other than teacher, librarian, secretary, nurse or housekeeper,” said Sandy Polishuk, a NWHP board member who also is one of the producers of the new DVD and one of the interviewers and writers for the original project in 1981.
   
Other Jewish women involved in the project include NWHP President Lynn Taylor, Susan Feldman and Barbara Gundel. Gundel worked as a photographer on the original project. Feldman, like Polishuk, was an interviewer, as was Taylor.
   
“Good Work Sister!” explores the experience of entering a world that had previously been male territory, learning trades that had been exclusively male, coping with the double day of shipyard and domestic work, dealing with the attitudes of male workers and being summarily laid off at war’s end.
   
While the work is first an historical document, it also remains timely, according to its producers.
   
In their promotional material they add, “‘Good Work Sister!’ not only informs us of the struggles and accomplishments of the women shipyard workers during the war years of 1942-45, it presents a model for solving some of working women’s persistent problems.”
   
A public showing of the work is set for Nov. 14 in Portland at the First Unitarian Church at Southwest 12th Avenue and Salmon Street at 7 p.m.