Pearl Harbor galvanized the country and sent it headlong into World War II, this we know. Just how everything changed – and so drastically – after that day is ripe for illustration, and Alfred Palmer did a good job of that with his photograph above, shot outside a large hangar at a Goodyear facility in Akron, Ohio, in December 1941. We have to assume the photograph was taken after Pearl Harbor, given his “the present emergency” wording in his caption to the image:
Formerly an aircraft dock, this huge building — thought to be the largest in the world with no interior supports — is now the scene of many busy shops turning out aircraft sub-assembly parts, Goodyear Aircraft Corp., Akron, Ohio. Either new housing close to the plant or vastly improved public transportation will eventually have to be supplied, for the tires on the cars of the workers, and perhaps even the cars themselves, will in many instances give in before the end of the present emergency.
As with Russell Lee’s photograph of Cascade, Idaho, we chose to reproduce this photograph this morning to see if we can help along the historical record just a bit by identifying the cars pictured here. If you’d like a little head-start, the comments on this image on Flickr include identifications on a few of the cars, but not all of them. See how many you can attach years, makes and models to.
Also, though not in color and scanned at a lower resolution, we found a couple other Palmer photos of the outside of the hangar (below) and plenty of photos of the goings-on inside the hangar, all taken that same day.
