The Second World War had been raging for over two years by the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941. This attack dramatically ended American ambivalence about the war and brought about great changes throughout the country. Perhaps one of the most dramatic transformations was that involving American industry. Factory after factory, in city after city across the country, transformed its manufacturing might from peacetime to war production on a scale such as the world had never seen.

Of course, a measurable segment of the industry in the United States was already in the business of manufacturing the tools of war. In Western New York, for example, both Curtiss and Bell aircraft companies were producing fighter planes for export and service in the U.S. Army Air Corps. In other cases, however, the transformation was more dramatic. Rochester's National Postal Meter shifted their peacetime production to the manufacture of military rifles, while the Wurlitzer factory in North Tonawanda produced bomb fuzes and other military products, instead of jukeboxes and organs. The same was true in Lockport, N.Y., as the war significantly changed the face of Harrison Radiator Corporation, the city's largest employer.

To read the rest of this story by Douglas Farley, see page 54 of the Summer 2010 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!