Last updated: October 22, 2024
Person
Barbara Tuttle Green
In 1943, at the age of 17, Barbara Tuttle Green began her career at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Green, like many others who flocked to the Navy Yard, entered the workforce with little to no prior experience in the trades she would soon master.
Reflecting on her experience, as captured through oral history, Green vividly recounted her first day on the job: she showed up at the employment office, filled out an application, and was immediately offered a position. The US Navy assigned jobs to civilian employees based on assessments completed by prospective employees, which matched individuals with roles according to their abilities and the Yard's needs.
When asked about her family's reaction to her new job at the Navy Yard, Green explained, "I wasn't living at home. I was a state ward that was living in foster homes, so I was living with a family, and it didn't bother them, as long as they got their room and board."1 To get to work, she had to take a streetcar, subway, and finally walk the rest of the way to the Navy Yard.
Green's initial role as a welder involved working with metal in the stowage areas of Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs), a position she held for six months. Unfortunately, a health issue cut her work short: she contracted galvanized poisoning, a condition resulting from poor air circulation and inhalation of galvanized dust. Galvanized poisoning, also known as "welding shivers" or "metal dust fever," occurs when workers breathe in fumes created during the heating or welding of galvanized metal. The lack of proper air circulation in the stowage areas meant this was an unfortunate reality for many Navy Yard workers. The condition can cause symptoms such as fever, chills, headache, nausea, and muscle aches. While not usually fatal, it can be debilitating and significantly impact a worker's ability to perform their duties. Green recalled, "I stopped working for a while, and I was so bad that I had to sit with a chair tipped upside down, and sleep in an upright position, for a couple of months, before I got over this."
After a months-long recovery, Green returned to the Navy Yard, this time to work in the sheet metal shop. The sheet metal shop, located in Building 103—now The Anchorage apartments—played an integral role in the production of ship parts. In this shop, workers cut metal pieces using punch presses and other machinery to meet the specifications required for shipbuilding.
Green described her early days in the sheet metal shop as a period of on-the-job learning. Unlike her welding training, which had included around six weeks of instruction on welding steel plates with rods, her new role in the sheet metal shop involved a more informal approach. Green noted, "They just showed us how to do it, and we did it, on the job."
The dangers of industrial work during this era extended beyond galvanized poisoning. Navy Yard workers, including Green, faced numerous hazards, like exposure to harmful chemicals, heavy machinery, and extreme physical demands. Additionally, workers could not rely on safety divisions or formal safety drills, as Green recalled, "We were too busy working to have drills." Despite the lack of formal safety protocols, workers were required to wear safety shoes, helmets (while welding), flash goggles, and gloves to mitigate some risks associated with their tasks.
Green held a demanding work schedule during the height of World War II, when production in the Navy Yard was at its peak. She typically worked 9-hour shifts from 7 AM to 5 PM, five days a week. During peak periods, her hours extended to seven days a week, including Sundays, as the Navy Yard pushed to meet wartime demands. However, as the war drew to a close and the need for production decreased, the Navy Yard began laying off workers, often finding any excuse to do so.
One memorable episode towards the end of her tenure involved an unexpected change in duties. When the Yard ran out of materials needed for their usual tasks, Green and her colleagues were instructed to wash windows. As she humorously recalled, "Being a bunch of smart-alecky girls that we were, we said that we weren't hired to wash windows, we were hired as sheet metal workers." Faced with the choice of washing windows or resigning, Green and her co-workers opted to resign.
Despite the challenges and the abrupt end to her tenure, Barbara Tuttle Green looked back on her time at the Charlestown Navy Yard with fondness. Her experience is a vivid reminder of the many individuals who, through hard work and determination, played crucial roles in supporting the war effort and shaping the legacy of the Navy Yard. After leaving the Navy Yard, Green transitioned to a job in a jewelry shop, where she used her punch press skills. Following her marriage to a military servicemember, the couple frequently relocated.
Barbara Tuttle Green's story underscores the often-overlooked sacrifices made by women during wartime. While many are familiar with the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter, countless women, like Green, worked under demanding conditions, facing health risks and physical exhaustion to support the war effort. Their contributions went beyond the visible aspects of factory work, involving hidden sacrifices that helped secure victory and shape post-war society.
Footnote
- All of Barbara Tuttle Green’s quotes throughout this article are from her oral history. Interview with Barbara Tuttle Green for the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park Charleston Navy Yard, by Francy K. Bockoven, 7 December 1977.
Sources
Agnew Ulrika M. and Todd L. Slesinger. "Zinc Toxicity" in StatPearls [Internet]. National Library of Medicine. Last updated December 11, 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554548/.
Cleveland Clinic. "Heavy Metal Poisoning (Toxicity)." Last modified May 8, 2023. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23424-heavy-metal-poisoning-toxicity.
Greenberg, Michael I, and David Vearrier. "Metal fume fever and polymer fume fever." Clinical toxicology Philadelphia, Pa. 53, no.4 (2015): 195-203. doi:10.3109/15563650.2015.1013548. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25706449/.
Interview with Barbara Tuttle Green for the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park Charleston Navy Yard, by Francy K. Bockoven, 7 December 1977.
The Weld Guru. "How Long Does It Take for Galvanized Poisoning to Set In?" Last modified July 6, 2023. https://www.theweldguru.com/how-long-does-it-take-for-galvanized-poisoning-to-set-in/.