Healthcare, Childcare & Education - Audio Program

Historic photo of the Maritime Child Development Center

Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Location:

Richmond, California

Significance:

National Historical Park

Healthcare, Childcare & Education - Learn At Home

This audio program is part of the "Learn at Home" series and offers an introduction to the history of WWII and the Richmond, California Home Front. You may access the series on the official NPS App and search for Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park or on our park website.

Park Website Audio Programs: Stream or download directly.

 

• Healthcare, Childcare & Education

  
  

  This program is part of an introduction to the history of the park and the WWII Home Front. You can listen to it at home, while driving, before your visit to the park visitor center or as part of the official NPS App driving tour. These files are also available as a free download on our website and can be a great educational tool for your classroom.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS/Luther Bailey/Lauren Good/Rob Milton

  Date created:

  07/20/2023

  Audio Transcript

  Wartime demands had inspired new approaches to social needs. The Kaiser shipyards supported, to an unprecedented level, social programs in healthcare and childcare for employees and their families. Affordable housing and childcare centers sprang up around Richmond's shipyards. Kaiser founded one of the nation's first voluntary, pre-paid medical plans, now Kaiser Permanente, to keep shipyard workers healthy.

  In 1942, Kaiser started the Permanente Health Plan for its shipyard workers in Richmond and Vanport, Oregon. They instituted a three-tier medical care system consisting of first-aid stations in the shipyards, a field hospital, and a main hospital. This health system and its availability on a prepaid basis to workers, represented a visionary innovation at the time and laid the groundwork for the present-day Kaiser Permanente health system.

  Federal funds helped to establish approximately 35 childcare centers of varying sizes in Richmond to provide preschool childcare for women working in the shipyards. At its peak, with roughly 24,500 women on the Kaiser payroll, Richmond’s citywide childcare program maintained a total daily attendance of approximately 1,400 preschool children. In some locations, the program provided 24-hour care for children whose mothers worked the night shift and included well-balanced hot meals, health care, and optional family counseling.

  Those innovations were models for social progress, a glimpse of what could be achieved in time of crisis, and a motivation to accomplish more in time of peace.