Posts Tagged ‘Kaiser Shipyards’

Prevention of worker injuries a Kaiser Permanente tradition

posted on January 2, 2013

By Lincoln Cushing
Heritage writer

Kaiser wartime shipyard dress code poster. Henry Kaiser archives image.

In 1930s America, manual labor of all types– farming, construction, and manufacturing – was dangerous. In those depressed and troubled times, anxious workers were glad to have a job despite the risk of injury or death. Statistics of the decade told the story: workers were killed at an annual rate of 37 per 100,000 employees.

It was in this environment that Sidney R. Garfield began to offer industrial medical care for some of the 5,000 men working on the Colorado River Aqueduct Project in 1933. Garfield addressed the problem head-on by encouraging safe work habits and identifying and eliminating hazards. Garfield, bent on keeping the workers well, actively nurtured a culture of safety awareness and accident prevention.

Garfield’s vigilance to ensure a safe workplace – key to his early preventive care philosophy – remains a vital part of the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan he started with Henry Kaiser almost 70 years ago.

Garfield and Kaiser found synergy in providing health care for Kaiser’s 8,000 workers at the Grand Coulee Dam project in Washington state starting in 1938. That was practice for the real test they faced in maintaining the health of shipyard workers during World War II.

No time to plan for war industries

This safety cartoon was in the Richmond Shipyard No. 3 employee handbook in 1943. From the Lisa Killen Collection.

With almost no time for preparation or planning, Kaiser hired almost 200,000 new employees to toil nonstop to support American and Allied war efforts. Henry Kaiser ran seven West Coast shipyards and a steel mill in Fontana, Calif. His workforce was not composed of the usual sturdy males with experience in the trades – those men were serving in the military. Most shipyard workers were migrants from the South and Midwest, and about a third of them were women. Many were disabled. Few had held industrial jobs before.

The Kaiser Shipyards managers instituted several measures to reduce workplace risk.

One approach was to take care to assign people to the right job when they were first hired. In early 1944, the War Manpower Commission contracted with Permanente Foundation Hospitals to compile data about the physical requirements of each job in the shipyard. This study resulted in a 627-page reference guide called the Physical Demands and Capacities Analysis.  

This illustration was published in the Bo’s'ns Whistle, the Portland shipyard employee newsletter, 1943

After workers were hired, they were not placed in a job until managers could fully understand their physical capabilities. The job placement guide helped avoid assigning someone to a job they couldn’t physically handle.

The “Plate Acetylene Burner” job description in the guide reads: “Climbs 6 steps to and from assembly platform twice daily, and walks within 500’ x 65’ area to stand, stoop, reach down, grasp, lift, and carry up to 35 pounds of “burning” equipment (women), and up to 75 pounds (men) to place where burning is to be done (25% of job).”

An article in the June 1, 1944, San Francisco Call Bulletin noted the study’s long-term importance. The manpower commission’s regional director told the paper: “The technique (methodology) on which (the research) is based will be invaluable in the postwar period when thousands of returning service men and women will have to be fitted into new jobs.”

Another strategy was to conduct ongoing worker education about occupational hazards. The weekly shipyard newsletters regularly featured cartoons, articles, contests, and photos about the right and wrong way to perform any task. The Richmond newsletter Fore ‘n’ Aft published a “Safety Boner Contest” cartoon created in the nearby Marinship yard (Sausalito) asking readers to identify hazards. Although 112 errors were intentionally drawn in, a zealous reader in a Vancouver (Washington) yard found 118.

Changes in law, technology curb hazards

Death and injury from industrial hazards such as coal dust, explosions, and asbestos have declined markedly in the past century, partly due to changing modes of production and partly due to progressive legislation.

One key step was the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970, which helped accelerate an already improving work environment. In the 22-year period prior to OSHA’s existence, death rates dropped by 38 percent from the 1948 rate; in the first 22 years following its creation rates dropped by more than 61 percent.[i]

Hazards change. The most significant workplace health problem emerging in the late 20th century was the array of musculoskeletal disorders caused by repetitive stress. And today, in the health care field, other dangers lurk, such as needle sticks, exposure to contaminated human fluids, and getting injured while repositioning and lifting patients.

LMP works for reduction of KP workplace injuries

This is one of KP Northwest Region’s series of posters highlighting how employees can make a difference in workplace safety.

With the 1997 birth of Kaiser Permanente’s Labor Management Partnership, worker safety programs took a huge leap forward. The LMP’s Workplace Safety Initiative, launched June 21, 2001, was the most comprehensive and ambitious effort to date, with a goal of reducing the number of workplace-related illnesses and injuries by 50 percent over the next four years.

“Too many people in our organization are being hurt on the job today,” said Dick Pettingill, then-president of the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan in California. “This is unacceptable to me, and it should be unacceptable to all of us.”[ii]

The next year newly appointed KP Chairman and CEO George Halvorson and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called on employees, managers, and physicians nationwide to make their workplaces safer. “There is no reason why we should accept an environment in which accidents are occurring,” Halvorson said. “We’re all going to work together, in Partnership teams, to improve the safety of our workplace.”[iii]

Hundreds of trained two-person teams from labor and management toured medical centers and regional operations facilities in “Broad Engagement Walk-throughs” sponsored by Southern California Region’s Workplace Safety group. The teams talked to unit staff who also responded to surveys to help identify workplace safety issues.[iv]

KP HealthConnect® joins safety campaign

“My name is CONROY. I was created for the sole purpose of getting you to watch for me and my important safety messages.” KP Northwest Region campaign graphic, 2011

New technologies also demanded workplace safety planning. In 2004, the Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect® workplace safety team partnered with stakeholders in Northern California to minimize any negative ergonomic consequences of the new national electronic health record system. Equipment at 34,000 workstations and hundreds of nursing stations and exam rooms had been modified or replaced, so the workplace safety team developed customized carts, wall mounts, and other adjustments to make sure that the upgrades were safe for physicians and staff.[v]

One way the LMP plays a valuable role is through the site-specific unit-based teams and other natural clusters of workers with similar jobs. In 2004 the Los Angeles Medical Center’s Lift Teams (specially trained staff members who help nurses and physicians lift and move patients safely) reduced the number of workplace injuries by nearly 45 percent over a three-month period.[vi]

By the end of 2005, the Southern California injury rate had declined 29 percent – short of the 50 percent reduction goal but still a significant achievement. Northern California met its goal of 50 percent reduction one year later.

Safety pin graphic created for KP Northern California’s “Speak Up for Safety” campaign, 2011.

Another major effort is the KP Workplace Safety Program, which seeks to reduce injury on the job for all employees of Kaiser Permanente, from office workers to nurses to couriers. Planning and implementation is coordinated by a national leadership team with regional representation.

In Northern California, the WPS Program serves all represented employees, including those in non-LMP unions such as the California Nurses Association, Stationary Engineers Local 39, and the Guild for Professional Pharmacists.

The challenge continues. In 2011 Northern California WPS Program Executive Director Helen Archer-Duste, RN, MS, reiterated KP’s goal: “Working in health care is dangerous. I want to make us the safest place in health care . . . Our ultimate goal is to have a workplace with no injuries. I believe that can happen.”[vii]

Thanks to Kathy Gerwig (vice president, KP Employee Safety), Helen Archer-Duste (executive director, KP Workplace Safety and Care Experience), Patricia Hansen (KP regional workplace safety practice leader), and Maureen Anderson (Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions) for contributing to this article.

[i]http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/futurework/report/chapter5/main.htm

[ii]California Wire, “Workplace Safety Initiative: KP and Labor Partners Put Safety First,” Aug. 6, 2001.
[iii] California Wire, “U.S. Labor Leader, KP CEO, Employees, and Managers Launch Programwide LMP Workplace Safety Plans,” Nov. 4, 2002
[iv] California Wire, “Labor Management Partnership Reaches Staff in Workplace Safety ‘Walk-throughs’,” Nov. 11, 2002.
[v] California Wire, “Safety Is Key in KP HealthConnect® Deployment,” July 19, 2004.
[vi] California Wire, “Los Angeles Lift Team Wins LMP Award,” July 26, 2004.
[vii] “Workplace Injuries Plummet,” Inside KP, Nov. 8, 2011.

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Kaiser Permanente was about fitness before fitness was cool

posted on May 9, 2012

By Wendy Edelstein
Heritage associate

Third in a series

The Kaiser company sponsored a women’s basketball team during the Richmond Shipyard days. Bancroft Library photo.

Getting regular exercise plays a key role in staying physically and mentally healthy. A given in 2012, the relationship between physical activity and good health has only been well understood for the past few decades.

While work once involved physical labor for a majority of Americans, early 20th century technological advances changed most jobs into something requiring much less exertion. Henry Ford introduced the assembly line into his Detroit factory to produce cars more rapidly, and mechanization spread to other industries, including farming.

Getting workers into ship-shape

The man behind California’s Richmond Kaiser Shipyards understood the value of good health. Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser knew that keeping workers and their families healthy and happy was vital for the success of his business. Competition among Kaiser teams to produce the most ships at the fastest pace was intense.

To keep workers fit, and to boost morale, the Kaiser Shipyard management provided many opportunities for employees to be active. Softball and basketball games were scheduled so that day, swing, and graveyard workers could participate. And bowling, skating, swimming, tennis and horseshoes were available any time.

Most able-bodied American men were away fighting on the war front, so women workers (who became collectively known as “Rosie the Riveter” and “Wendy the Welder”) took on jobs that in peaceful times would have been considered men’s work. The work was demanding – and early on women found their jobs requiring more strength and stamina than they could muster.

Richmond Shipyards shopfitters baseball team during World War II. Bancroft Library photo.

When shipyard gynecologist Hannah Peters recognized many of the women were resigning because the work was too hard, the yard began providing them with strength training.  The women learned how to climb ladders, lift loads, and how to combine the two skills to climb with loads.

A mid-century check-up

By the early 1950s, the effect of industrialization began to show, and Americans were judged to be less physically fit than previous generations. “Muscular Fitness and Health,” a 1953 article published in the Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, asserted that the sedentary 20th century American lifestyle had led to a loss of muscle tone in this country’s citizens.

Co-authors Hans Kraus, MD, and Bonnie Prudden cautioned that Americans needed to adopt physical fitness regimens to regain the level of fitness of earlier generations who used their feet to get around and sweated through their work day.

Kraus and Prudden’s message gained traction when mainstream publications such as Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report and Sports Illustrated picked up on a study Kraus had done that showed American youth to be significantly less fit than their European counterparts.

In the early 1950s Kraus studied students between the ages of 6 and 16 and measured their strength and flexibility as they performed sit-ups, leg lifts and toe touches.

A startling 56 percent of the 4,400 American students tested by Kraus and his colleague Sonja Weber, MD, failed at least one of the fitness components. In contrast, only 8 percent of the 3,000 European students (who hailed from Switzerland, Italy or Austria) failed even one part of the test.

Kraus blamed the American students’ poor showing on their pampered lifestyles: Their parents typically drove them to school, and they did only light chores and played within their own neighborhoods. Their European peers, on the other hand, typically walked miles to school, rode bicycles and performed strenuous chores such as chopping wood.

John and Jackie Kennedy on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Dec. 26, 1960

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1954, America received a lesson in preventive care from Dr. Paul Dudley White, the president’s physician. Dr. White used television – 65 percent of Americans had a TV at home by 1955 – to tell Americans they could stave off heart attacks by exercising more, giving up cigarettes, and by eating healthier food, and less of it. President Eisenhower followed his doctor’s advice and went on to establish the President’s Council on Youth Fitness in 1956.

Sowing the seeds of a fitness revolution

In December 1960, then President-elect John F. Kennedy spearheaded a public awareness campaign promoting physical fitness. In “The Soft American,” an article he wrote that appeared in Sports Illustrated, Kennedy cited the results of the Kraus-Weber Test as well as an annual physical fitness exam at Yale University: 51% of the class passed in 1951, 43 percent passed in 1956 and 38 percent passed in 1960. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1134750/index.htm

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body; it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity,” wrote Kennedy. “The relationship between the soundness of the body and the activities of the mind is subtle and complex. Much is not yet understood. But we do know what the Greeks knew: that intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong; that hardy spirits and tough minds usually inhabit sound bodies.”

Once he took office, President Kennedy’s message reached an even wider audience via a public awareness campaign, President’s Council-sponsored pilot projects to test children’s fitness levels, clinics and educational films and booklets.

Outdoor aerobics class led by registered nurses in Hawaii, 1982

When Kaiser Permanente (KP) opened the doors of its Health Education Research Center in Oakland in 1969, its overarching educational theme was, “You have only one life to live – live it in good health.” The experimental center featured a patient health library and health exhibits. “Story of Life,” one of the most popular displays about human reproduction and family planning, used life-size, three-dimensional models and color slides.

Another area of the center presented information about health hazards: weight problems, smoking, venereal disease, cancer, and alcohol and drug abuse. The “Pathway to Positive Health” exhibit focused on how visitors could stay well by paying attention to nutrition, dental hygiene and the physical, mental, emotional and social aspects of good health.

The Health Education Research Center was an outgrowth of a pilot project that explored education’s role in increasing the effectiveness of preventive care. This was a new approach to prevention; it spread through the Kaiser Permanente system and beyond. By 1987, 85 percent of all U.S. hospitals offered health education programs.

From aerobics to yoga – 1970s ushered in fitness craze

Unofficial estimates in the early 1980s suggested that more than half of all Americans pursued some sort of recreational exercise, such as bicycling, swimming, tennis or running.  This new dedication to physical activity signaled a change.

“Until recently, modern generations of Americans by and large failed to act on a compelling accumulation of knowledge linking individual lifestyle with individual health. As a nation, our eating habits violated accepted standards of nutrition. We shunned devoting our leisure time to regular physical exercise,” declared the writers of Kaiser Permanente’s 1984 annual report.

Fitness guru Richard Simmons leads a class in aerobics.

During the 1970s and 1980s many Americans got swept up in the fitness craze. Wearing leotards, neon spandex and leg warmers, they headed to health clubs and performed leg lifts and side bends and hoisted dumbbells to upbeat music. Or they popped Jane Fonda’s Workout in the video cassette recorder (VCR) and worked up a sweat at home. Others jogged their way to good health after reading Jim Fixx’s 1977 bestseller The Complete Book of Running.

Americans had different motivations to exercise, according to a 1978 Harris poll. Twenty-four percent of regular exercisers cited their reason was to strengthen their heart and/or lungs, 41 percent sought to lose weight, 24 percent wanted to become healthier, and 45 percent hoped to stay healthy.

A 1976 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States looked at the importance of four factors. Lifestyle, including exercise and diet, figured most prominently at 51 percent, followed by heredity (20 percent), environment (19 percent) and inadequate access to health care (10 percent).

Garfield’s Prescient Total Health Care Project

KP founding physician Sidney Garfield’s crowning achievement, the Total Health Care Project, came towards the end of his life in 1984. Among the Total Health Care Project’s goals was “to provide comprehensive primary care services for both wellness and illness and to provide incentives to professional staff to keep members well rather than just treating them when they are sick.”

An aggressive outreach plan to new members encouraged them to schedule a health evaluation appointment to review their current health and to develop a personalized Health Improvement Plan (HIP).

Colorado KP employees and members participate in an aerobics class. Kaiser Permanente 1984 Annual Report photo.

Members received a mailing with the instructions: “If you are feeling fine, we also want to see you to make sure you are in good health and assist you in preventing future problems. We really think the BEST time for you to get acquainted with us is when you’re feeling good, without the pressure of illness.”

Members who visited the Total Health Care Center for initial and periodic examinations assessed their own health via a questionnaire. They were asked about their eating habits, their lifestyle and how frequently and intensely they exercised. Part of the assessment was a treadmill endurance test to determine cardiovascular fitness.

Through the Total Health program, the center staff guided members in their quest for good health. Handouts offered tips such as how to select an activity that you will stick with as well as how to take your own pulse.

In the 1980s, popular health books included Pritikin Program for Diet & Exercise, Better Homes & Gardens’ Good Food & Fitness and Covert Bailey’s Fit or Fat? Fitness programs and initiatives began to take root throughout Kaiser Permanente’s regions. For instance, in 1984, the Ohio Region launched its “Annual Frost Belt Classic,” a series of five-, 10-, and 15-kilometer cross-country ski races. The race drew 500 skiers in 1987.

In the early 1980s, every KP region sponsored or supported a race or fun run. As part of its Dr. Wizardwise health education program, the Hawaii region sponsored a run for children.

Also in the 1980s, Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Region established partnerships with about 15 local health clubs, enabling its members to join for a low or no initiation fee and a reduced monthly rate.

The current picture of health

Members of the Kaiser Permanente Dragon Boat Team, the KP Dragons. KP 2007 Annual Report photo.

Today medical assistants in Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California, Northern California, Colorado and Northwest regions ask patients about their exercise habits as a matter of course. Exercise as a Vital Sign was launched in Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California region first in 2009 to capture information about members’ physical activity.

Medical assistants routinely ask two questions: 1) On average, how many days a week do you engage in moderate or greater physical activity (like a brisk walk)? 2) On those days, how many minutes do you engage in activity at that level? Those answers are entered into the KP member’s computerized health record, and his or her physician can view that information along with the rest of the patient’s vital signs.

Kaiser Permanente also promotes healthy living through its Every Body Walk!, Thrive Across America, Healthy Eating Active Living and KP Healthworks programs and by sponsoring walks, runs and cycling events and offering an array of fitness classes at its medical centers.

Weight of the Nation - HBO series on obesity

Home Box Office series premiers May 14

With Exercise as a Vital sign in the exam room and a broad array of healthy living initiatives, Kaiser Permanente’s longtime fitness message endures: regular exercise is one of the cornerstones of preventive care and ultimate good health.

Kaiser Permanente is one of the sponsors of the Home Box Office (HBO) upcoming documentary series “Weight of the Nation,” which covers the issue of obesity in America. The four-part series will be aired May 14 and 15. For more information about KP’s involvement in the fight against obesity: http://bit.ly/kptwotn

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Richmond shipyard women – Homefront heroines

posted on April 10, 2012

A recent gift to the Heritage Resources archive – a Kaiser Richmond Shipyards photo of 20 female workers, one happy fellow, and a nurse. This acquisition was from Terry Meneze, granddaughter of Mamie Allen (middle row, far right) who came to California from a dustbowl cotton farm in Oaklahoma in 1942 with her four children seeking a better life. [LC]

Names and cities of origin are written on the back, but not linked to any face.Frances Huff, Salem, Illinois – “Slow Poke”; Muriel Kidd, Evanston, Wyoming; Frances Huff, Salem, Illinois – “Slow Poke”; Ina Hallum, Arkansas; Gertrude “Bobby” Fall, California; Helen Brashear, Oklahoma; Donna Lee Tudder, McGee “Cale”; Shirley Marriott, “Dumbo”, Ogden, Utah; Viola Meddo, Oklahoma; Sally Perata; Anita Siehl, San Francisco, California; Myrtle Dedman, Trumann, Arkansas; Wilma Salonish, California, “Prune”,”Mrs. Mike”; Eunice Smith, “Little Smitty Honey,” Wisconsin; Willie Rogers, Louisiana; Mrs. Medley, Arkansas; Christine Cole, McAlester, Oklahoma; Lois Allen, Fargo, North Dakota; Louelle Erikson, Billings, Montana; Lois Stoelting; Mamie Allen.

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Sunnyside physician publishes story of Permanente Northwest

posted on January 20, 2012

By Lincoln Cushing

Heritage writer

Permanente in the Northwest fills a large gap in the history of Kaiser Permanente – the unique contribution made by the Northwest region, especially in the early years.  Author and retired Northwest internist Ian C. MacMillan, who served 14 years as chief of medicine at Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Medical Center, demonstrates an insider’s insight and enviable access to details that thoroughly enrich this account.

Before there was a Kaiser Permanente, there was Permanente Metals, the division of Henry J. Kaiser’s construction consortium that built ships during World War II. The medical services offered to those civilian workers was the kernel of what would eventually grow to become one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, and with two vibrant shipyards in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, the Northwest was a key participant.

The prologue provides a history of the medical care options in the area before 1941 as well as the story of how Sidney Garfield, MD, and industrialist Henry J. Kaiser came to collaborate on their successful model of prepaid industrial medical care. This is followed by a detailed account of the wartime boom – shipyards, housing, and health care rolled into one.

Wartime shipyards in Oregon and Washington

Notable events include the then-new practice of treating civilian tuberculosis patients with streptomycin, the model day care program for workers’ children endorsed by Eleanor Roosevelt, and a rich art community.

Clipping about the completion of Bess Kaiser Hospital, July 1959, Oregon Journal

The demand for medical facilities soon outstripped the capacity of the first aid stations in the yards, and the first Northern Permanente Foundation (NPF) Hospital was built in Vancouver, Washington, in 1942, followed by a second one across the Columbia River in Vanport, Oregon, a temporary community built for shipyard workers, the following year.

That hospital was kept out of the nearby metropolis of Portland through stiff resistance by the local medical establishment, an example of a contentious relationship that would last many years.

As happened in California, the exodus of shipyard workers after the war forced the Northwest medical care program to expand to the broader community. Ernest Saward, MD, who had administered the wartime health care plan for DuPont plutonium workers at Hanford, Washington, became the medical director of the physician group and the Northwest health plan in 1947.

Changes after World War II

Dr. MacMillan explores some of the fractious cold-war dynamics of the medical partnership at that time, including debates about how KP internist Charles Grossman’s political activism was affecting the medical group’s relationship with the community.* (See note below.)

Beaverton (Oregon) medical office building groundbreaking, June 1968

By 1950 relationships had deteriorated to the point that Edgar Kaiser (Henry J. Kaiser’s son) fired them all and formed a new partnership. Dr. MacMillan details other challenges to the Northwest region, including its struggle for legitimacy with the American Medical Association and ostracism by private practitioners.

The first major postwar facility in the Northwest was the Bess Kaiser Hospital in Portland, completed July 7, 1959. (There would not be another until the 1975 Garfield-designed Sunnyside Medical Center at Clackamas, Oregon). Named for Henry Kaiser’s first wife, the state-of-the-art facility featured air conditioning, telephones and televisions in every room, pneumatic medical records delivery, and a drawer bassinet allowing newborns to slide through the wall between mother’s room and the nursery.

Tumultuous times for KP Northwest medical group

The Kaiser Permanente health plan expanded into Hawaii in 1958, and the Northwest physicians played a significant role in helping that region survive a rocky start. Dr. Saward was called out to apply his management skills when friction within the physicians group exploded. Dr. MacMillan explains some of the complex background that led to the struggle, and he chronicles the eventual maturation of the region.

Frank Stewart, administrator; George Wolff, architect, Dr. Wallace Neighbor (pointing); Northern Permanente Foundation Hospital, circa 1942.

A large portion of the book is devoted to the history of various medical specialties of the Northwest medical group, detailing medical arcana more likely to be of interest to practitioners than a lay audience.  The last three chapters trace significant chronological events in the region from the 1970s to the present.

Among these topics are the challenges of recruiting and retaining good doctors (he outlines the need for robust medical infrastructure, clear work policies, and adequate pay), the deep impact of the 1988 nurses’ strike, and the erratic steps taken by KP to institutionalize an effective electronic medical record system.

In all, this is a much-needed historical survey of a major region in the Kaiser Permanente constellation. Dr. MacMillan does not shy away from exploring awkward and complicated events in the Northwest Permanente history, and he writes with an insider’s viewpoint that enriches the accounts.

Permanente in the Northwest should be of interest to anyone interested in modern American health care policy, health practice, and the broader history of medicine.

Permanente in the Northwest
Ian C. MacMillan, MD, The Permanente Press, 2010
313 pp, with illustrations, bibliography, and index
To order the book, go to permanentejournal.com

KP Northwest historical materials brought to Oakland

Preservation of the rich history of Kaiser Permanente’s Northwest Region (KPNW) got a boost at the end of 2011 when staff of the national Heritage Resources department in Oakland packed up over 100 cartons of Northwest photographs, clippings, newsletters, and files to fold into the KP archives. These materials will be selectively processed over time and added to the existing collection, greatly enhancing our research capacity. The photographs accompanying this review were drawn from that collection.

Special thanks to KPNW Community Benefit and External Affairs staff Jim Gersbach and Mary Ann Schell for their help.

 

*After leaving Permanente in 1950 Dr. Grossman continued to practice medicine privately, and his political activism continued throughout his life (a path respectfully footnoted in MacMillan’s book in his Afterword titled “What Happened to the Pioneers?”). He was arrested in 1990 during a peaceful demonstration organized by Physicians for Social Responsibility, challenging the presence of a nuclear-armed battleship berthed near the Portland Rose Festival. His court testimony describes the scene:

“I was standing silently with several other doctors and a few others with a sign in my hand saying ‘Rose Festival is a fun time, we don’t need nuclear weapons.’ About 2:30 p.m. three or four policemen approached and asked us to leave. I asked why and was told that we have no right to stand in a city park carrying a sign. . . I put my sign down and said ‘O.K. I am not carrying a sign.’ His response was that if I did not leave within 30 seconds I would be forcibly removed. I said we were creating no disturbance and again asked why such a confrontation was necessary.  While I was writing [down his badge and name] my two arms were forcibly seized, forced behind my back and handcuffs were applied.”

 

 

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New novel tracks lives of fictional Kaiser Shipyard Rosies

posted on October 11, 2011

By Ginny McPartland

Heritage writer

Dorothea Lange photo on the cover of "Wax"

At first glance, one would think the newly released novel “Wax” is about women working in the West Coast shipyards during World War II. Famed photographer Dorothea Lange’s powerful photo of proud, bold “girls” stomping through the yard implies a story about their struggles and triumphs in that setting.

Once inside, however, the reader pretty quickly understands that the stories to be told play out far from the shipyards. Three young women who met in Henry J. Kaiser’s Richmond Shipyards in 1943 formed friendships that endured for decades. The “Rosies” earned a bit of freedom and independence that they would refuse to relinquish when they returned home.

First-time novelist Therese Ambrosi Smith says she wrote the book about “Rosie the Riveter” to spark an interest among today’s young people, especially girls. Rosie national park Ranger Elizabeth Tucker turned Smith on to actual Rosie oral histories, and the would-be author was off on her quest.

World War II’s sociological impacts explored

Smith proclaims the novel’s premise on the front cover: “Pearl Harbor Changed Everything.” Historians know this fact, and they have written millions of words about the social, economic and political effects of World War II.

Author Therese Ambrosi Smith

Smith’s approach is to place a spotlight on personal lives. She creates three main characters, Tilly Bettencourt from a small town near Half Moon Bay, California; Doris Jura from Pittsburg, PA, both in their early 20s; and slightly older Sylvia Manning, 32, from Kansas City. She shows a smattering of their shipyard employment experiences and then places them back in their peacetime lives. These war-time experiences will color all they do from then on.

Author Smith takes the theme of women’s independence full bore as the young women return home and establish a candle factory on their own. (Yes, that’s where the book title comes from!) Such a bold move had seemed impossible before the war. Despite obstacles, Doris and Tilly’s dream comes to fruition.

Life lessons learned in the shipyards

Other life lessons are to be learned as well. At the shipyards, the girls awaken to the idea that blacks should be treated equally with whites. Smith writes of Tilly’s encounter with a caring black coworker who helps her to the clinic when she receives a serious eye injury and is temporarily blind.

Later, Tilly ponders the experience: “I don’t know why,” she (Tilly) told Doris, “but this whole thing has rattled me. I mean being helped by a colored.” Smith as narrator explains: “There weren’t any coloreds in Montara or Moss Beach; she had no history with them.”

Tilly then comes to the realization: “The work was dangerous and difficult, and everyone who did it, regardless of color or background, was helping to win the war. They were all in it together.”

Doris chimes in with: “I feel like we are seeing the world up close here. It looks different.”

The racial theme doesn’t play out when the girls return home after the war. But another issue – sexual orientation – looms large for Tilly. Feeling attraction to other women, the beautiful Tilly has to fight off the eligible bachelors of her home town. She lives in her own personal hell as her parents and others push her toward marriage. In a 1940s world, she has no idea where to turn for help or understanding.

Although this book is fairly light on the historical significance of the Rosie experience, I enjoyed it. The characters are creditable and the description of the settings took me there. At times, I felt like I was sitting in Tilly’s uncle’s comfortable café perched on the coast near Half Moon Bay.

The Red Oak Victory has been renovated and will be open for the Home Front Festival Oct. 15

More about Rosies at the Home Front Festival Saturday October 15

Learn more about the Rosie experience from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. this Saturday at the Fifth Annual Home Front Festival in the Craneway Pavilion at the southern end of Harbour Way in Richmond, California. Admission is free.

Area historical societies, the Rosie national park and the Pacific Region of the National Archives will have exhibits and information to share with visitors. Kaiser Permanente Heritage Resources will have displays highlighting the pioneering medical staff who launched the Permanente Medical Care Program in the Kaiser Shipyards during the war.

The Red Oak Victory, a World War II ship built at the Richmond Kaiser Shipyards, will be open on Saturday for visitors to tour. The ship, owned by the Richmond Museum of History, is just returning to the shipyard Friday from dry dock where it has received an extensive renovation.

Lena Horne helped launch the SS George Washington Carver in Richmond, May 1943

Historian Steve Gilford will debut his new book on Saturday aboard the ship. Gilford will be signing the book, “Build ‘Em by the Mile, Cut ‘Em off by the Yard, How Henry Kaiser and the Rosies helped Win World War II,” from 2 to 4 p.m. on the ship. Shuttles will ferry visitors between the Craneway and the Red Oak.

Lena Horne tribute at USO Dance Friday, Oct. 14

The Home Front party actually starts on Friday night with the Rosie the Riveter 1940s USO Dance, featuring a tribute to Lena Horne, also in the Craneway Pavilion. Robin Gregory will play the role of the legendary singer. Also on the bill are the Singing Blue Stars, Junius Courtney’s Big Band and the dance group Swing or Nothing!

Tickets for the dance may be purchased online at www.HFF2011.com or by calling the Richmond Chamber of Commerce at 510-234-3512. Advance tickets are $20 general and $15 for seniors; tickets may be purchased at the door for $25 general, $20 senior. Anyone showing a military i.d. or wearing an armed forces uniform will be admitted for free.

Event: Home Front festival

Description: Historical exhibits and 1940s-era entertainment

When: Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Oct. 15, 2011

Where: Craneway Pavilion (end of South Harbour Way [1414] in Richmond, California)

Admission: Free

Information: www.HomeFrontFestival.com

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Health care coverage for workers’ families didn’t come easy

posted on January 16, 2011

By Ginny McPartland 

Affordable health care was an elusive commodity in 1930s America. Medical practice was becoming more sophisticated, and qualified doctors were in great demand. Consequently, private professional care was out of reach for many Americans. Employer-sponsored health plans started to spring up in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but even those progressive prepaid plans were slow to add workers’ families to the coverage.  

In 1944, during World War II, the issue of family health care reached a critical point on the West Coast. War industry yards and plants were frantically producing ships, aircraft, tanks and other war materiel; thousands of migrant workers and their families flooded rapidly expanding communities. Many workers were sick when they arrived, and many became injured as they worked at breakneck speed to meet production deadlines. 

Permanente medicine, developed by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and enterprising physician Sidney Garfield, was launched to take care of workers in Kaiser’s West Coast shipyards. The two had done this before: Garfield had set up a prepaid plan for workers on the Los Angeles Aqueduct project in 1933, and he and Kaiser had teamed up to care for workers at the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state in the late 1930s. 

The Kaiser-Garfield prepaid, group practice plan for shipard workers was progressive and exemplary by all accounts. Unlimited medical care for the individual workers was provided for 50 cents per week. But Garfield and his doctors had their hands full, so initially only the worker – not the family members – was covered by the health plan. 

Young patient seen in Fontana Kaiser Steel plant clinic

Stuart Lester of “Medical Economics,” writes in the February 1944 issue: “The principal threat to the permanence of the Permanente Foundation – which provides virtually unlimited medical care for 130,000 Kaiser shipyard workers in two states* is the workers’ complaint that it makes no provision for their families.” 

The article continues: “The family problem is especially acute in the shipyard town of Richmond, Calif., where the ratio of physicians to population is something like 1 to 4,000 and where the only hospital facilities of any consequence are those provided by Kaiser’s Richmond Field Hospital.” 

In Richmond, Portland (Oregon) and Vancouver (Wash.), nonsubscriber family members were treated for a fee.  Office visits were $2.25. For maternity, $200 covered prenatal care, delivery, hospitalization, C-section if required, postnatal care, and care for the newborn. Employees at the Kaiser Fontana steel plant in Southern California were the exception. In 1944, Fontana workers could purchase complete coverage for a family of four for $1.80 a week. 

Physicians debate how to cover families 

“Medical Economics” writer Lester refers to three possible solutions proposed at the time: an expansion of the Permanente plan to include family members; an expansion into the Richmond area by the California Physicians’ Services (CPS) prepaid plan as operating in other war industry communities; or the development of a prepaid arrangement for families through a private physician network. 

The California Medical Association (CMA) launched the CPS in 1939 to offer prepaid care to low-income families in California. Initially, the physicians association’s plan offered a “full coverage contract” that included all outpatient physician services. In 1942, CPS excluded the first two doctor visits from coverage to make the plan financially viable, according to the April 1943 issue of the CMA’s “California and Western Medicine.” In 1943, CPS, the precursor to Blue Shield, had 39,000 commercial members, 5,100 government rural health program subscribers and a total of 32,000 war housing resident members in Vallejo, Marin, Los Angeles and San Diego. 

Permanente Richmond Field Hospital

“Dr. Sidney R. Garfield, Kaiser’s medical director, sees two obstacles to an extension of his program to include families: One is opposition by the local medical societies. The other is lack of facilities – particularly in the hospital at Richmond,” Lester wrote in “Medical Economics.” The article noted that expansions of the Richmond Field Hospital and the Permanente Foundation Hospital in Oakland were under way. 

The second proposal – having CPS provide family coverage for Richmond area workers – had been tried previously and failed. In 1942, CPS  had offered a family plan in nearby El Cerrito and was not able to attract enough members. The coverage for non-Kaiser workers was enticing: a $5 flat fee no matter how many family members. It wasn’t practical for Kaiser employees, however.  To take advantage of the CPS plan, a worker would have to buy his or her own coverage for $2.16 a month and then pay $5 for the rest of the family. 

According to the “Medical Economics” article, solving of the family care issue by fee-for-service doctors was doomed from the beginning.  A shortage of private doctors and inadequacy of medical facilities made any such plan unfeasible.  Also, California private practice physicians were admittedly just tolerating the Permanente model of prepaid, group practice with salaried physicians. One private doctor told the magazine: “The Kaiser-Garfield groups are doing a job right now that is aiding the war effort, and are doing it well. But we don’t like their system.” 

Kaiser extends coverage to shipyard families 

In the spring of 1945, the Permanente medical plan, now with expanded facilities to accommodate more members, was extended to the families of all Kaiser shipyard workers. “Medical Economics” reported the details of the Permanente family care plan: for $117 a year ($2.25 per week) for a family of four, coverage was extensive. It included 111 days of hospitalization, complete diagnostic services, necessary drugs, physician services at home or medical office, major and minor surgery, and ambulance service within a 30-mile radius. Members paid an extra charge of $60 for comprehensive maternity care, $15 for a tonsillectomy and $2 for a house call. 

“Medical Economics” concluded the article with this statement: “Insurance men pointed out that the total annual cost for a family of four, $117 a year, is an amount which has generally proved to be too high for any wide participation on a voluntary basis.” 

Workers who left the shipyards could maintain coverage for a “slightly higher” premium as long as they continued to live in the service area. This retention provision foreshadowed Kaiser and Garfield’s plans to keep the Permanente medical care plan alive after the war industries shut down. 

*Kaiser shipyards health plan actually took care of workers in three states, California, Washington and Oregon, and enrolled up to 190,000 members at the peak of the war.

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Promise of jobs attracts wartime workers to West Coast shipyards

posted on November 25, 2010

By Ginny McPartland

In the fall of 1942, thousands of New York area workers boarded Kaiser Shipyards recruiting trains in Hoboken, New Jersey, heading for Oregon.  Around the same time, thousands of job seekers were catching trains from the South and the Midwest bound for Richmond, California. Still others uttered a hopeful prayer as they started up their jalopies or farm trucks and headed west. Looking to change their lives for the better, the skilled and unskilled took a chance that the West Coast dream was not an illusion.

They were leaving their hometowns where recovery from the Great Depression was elusive. If they had jobs, the pay was low. Many were deep in debt and saw higher pay in the World War II shipyards as a way to heal their ailing finances. Some were young and saw no future or excitement in their native states.  

Chicago area welders wait for train to Richmond. National Archives photo by Jack Delano.

 Individuals were desperately needed to build ships to help win the war. So it didn’t matter whether you were black or white or Asian or Hispanic – or if you had skills and experience. You could learn on the job, and if you did well, you could improve your position and pay. You didn’t even have to be healthy and strong – and many weren’t. You could seek medical care at the shipyards, and you could purchase the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, affordable comprehensive, prepaid health care for yourself and your family.  

The shipyard life wasn’t all hearts and flowers. Worker housing was inadequate, and communities were overwhelmed with newcomers.  But for many workers, migration to the West Coast opened up a new, optimistic world.  

Mississippi mother of 11 becomes shipyard welder  

Lucille Preston, reared in Clarkesdale, Mississippi (near Memphis, Tennessee), is a case in point. She first went to work on a plantation at age 12 or 13 babysitting for the wealthy owner’s children. Eventually, she cooked for the family every day and served at their elaborate parties. The generous family hosted her wedding when she married a man whose parents worked for the same prominent family.  

When the couple’s six child was on the way, Preston’s husband, Willie, caught the California bug. “My husband just came home one evening and said that there was work in Richmond, California. ‘They’re opening up the Kaiser Shipyard, and I would like to go.’ So I said: ‘Why sure,’ ” Preston told Judith K. Dunning, oral history interviewer for a Bancroft Library project in 1985.*  

Unidentified family awaiting a train in Chicago. National Archives photo by Jack Delano.

Willie sent for Lucille when he got an apartment in the war housing. She set out for Richmond on a train, eight months pregnant, carrying her one-year-old with the other four clinging to her skirt. On the platform, a kind conductor shepherded Lucille and her brood through the crushing crowd onto a car bound for California. From El Paso, Texas, to Richmond, Lucille stood holding the baby while the other children settled at the feet of nearby passengers.  

At Richmond, the Prestons settled in their new home, Lucille gave birth and a month later she was working graveyard at the shipyards and learning how to weld. Willie worked swing shift so the two took turns at parenting.  The couple had five more children over the next decade. After the war, Lucille operated a dress-uniform press at Treasure Island where she worked for 20 years.   

Lucille told Dunning her only regret was that the expense of raising eight sons and three daughters kept her from building her dream house. However, most of her children went to college – one daughter has two master’s degrees –and they all have successful careers.    

Government helps young men launch shipyard careers  

Getting to California from other parts of the country seemed a pipe dream for many would-be welders. Kaiser Shipyard recruiters fronted train fare for many who came across the country with nothing. Workers could pay back the loan when they got their paychecks. For young men 16 to 24, the federal National Youth Administration (NYA), established by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1935, collaborated with the Richmond Kaiser Shipyards to make the impossible dream possible.  

The NYA paid for transportation to California. Once in Richmond, the young men were welcomed at the Richmond War Work Residence Center where they lived in dormitories and received two to four weeks of welder training. The pay for a month was $33.30, minus $22.50 for meals, dental and medical care, work clothes and equipment. After the initial period of “confusion, bewilderment and expense,” the men were placed in shipyard jobs, according to the Richmond Shipyard newsletter “Fore ‘N Aft.” By April 1943, the project had placed 1,500 welders in Richmond yards.  

Diversity reigns in the shipyards  

Throughout the war years, the West Coast shipyards attracted all kinds of people from all over the globe.  There were actors, writers, lawyers, cowboys, farmers, housewives, shopkeepers, and doctors. Some were experienced at building ships and others had never seen one.  

Here’s how the “Fore ‘N Aft” described the work force in April 1944: “We are all kinds of people, as you can tell by listening to us – Texas twang and Brooklyn brogue, down east Yankee and Carolina drawl, along with almost every language on earth from Polish to Swedish, from Syrian to Italian. It takes all kinds of people to build ships, just as it took all kinds to build America. Shoulder to shoulder, we’ll come through together.”  

*Lucille Preston, “A World War II Journey: From Clarkesdale, Mississippi, to Richmond, California, 1942,” an oral history conducted in 1985 by Judith K. Dunning, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1992.  

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Climb the gangplank to learn about World War II’s social legacy

posted on March 13, 2010

Photo courtesy of Red Oak Victory

By Ginny McPartland
If you grew up in the Bay Area, or anywhere in America for that matter, you’re missing the boat if you haven’t been out to experience the Red Oak Victory ship docked on the Richmond waterfront. Granted it’s difficult to find, and in fact, you may never have heard of it. Not to worry, most people haven’t yet visited the Rosie the Riveter National Park where the ship is found.

The Red Oak Victory, built in the Kaiser Richmond shipyards in 1944, is a huge hulk of seaworthy steel that embodies a million stories pertinent to our society’s past. The ammunition ship, saved from scrap in 1998 by the Richmond Museum of History, serves as the chief artifact of the home front city’s museum collection. Volunteers have renovated much of the ship, which carried essential cargo for battles in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. www.ssredoakvictory.com

Richmond, and other Bay Area shipyards, figured fantastically in WWII home front America. The Bay Area was radically changed forever by the phenomenal influx of 200,000 shipyard workers and their families from around the nation. Every type of individual was represented in the newly configured social structure of California.

The legacy of World War II’s sociological impact is fully explored and documented in books and other items in the Red Oak’s museum gift shop. Notable examples are: “To Place Our Deeds” by Shirley Ann Wilson Moore; and “World War II Shipyards by the Bay” by Nicholas A. Veronico.

Red Oak mast

Just a few changes nudged by the war: Women working with men in industrial settings for equal pay; blacks and minorities working with whites for comparable pay; the emergence of professional child care centers; employment for the disabled; and affordable prepaid preventive health care provided by employers.
The medical care program started in the wartime shipyards lives on as Kaiser Permanente and is well documented in Tom Debley’s book “Dr. Sidney R. Garfield: The Visionary Who Turned Sick Care into Health Care,” published in 2009 by Permanente Press.

Changes in the status of women and minorities largely reverted after the war, but the seeds were deeply planted for the civil rights and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s.

Now for my confession: I grew up in Richmond, and I had never seen the shipyards or the Red Oak Victory until recently. My first visit to the floating museum was only a few weeks ago. Bay Area Historian Steve Gilford, a director on the museum board, gave me two tours of Shipyard 3 and the Red Oak. My eyes were opened to the treasure that is preserved in the depths of this honey-combed hunk of war grey welded and riveted steel.

The ship experience starts with a climb up the gangplank, a portable, suspended aluminum staircase to the main deck. From there, you step over the raised rims of the hatchways and navigate steel ladders to the various compartments of the midship house and the deckhouse. Down from the main deck you’ll find the museum, gift shop, and meeting room in a cleaned-up cargo hold.

Industrial mixer for batter

Ship's galley griddle ready for pancakes

One cheery way to introduce yourself to the historic waterfront is to partake of the $6 pancake breakfast offered on the Red Oak Victory once a month from April to October. The first one for 2010 is April 11.

To get to the Red Oak Victory, take I80 to 580 West. Stay on the freeway past the Rosie the Riveter park exit and take Canal Boulevard instead. Follow Canal all the way to the bay and wind your way through the industrial area to Berth 6A.

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