Pauline Bunyans and WWII Victory Lumber
World War II created a shortage of workers along with a national need to produce lumber for military efforts. During the war, Weyerhaeuser News, the lumber company’s magazine, ran features highlighting the work done by the women who took over for the men who were called to serve. The 1942 issue of Weyerhaeuser News (see below) highlighted the crucial contributions of women in the company's wartime workforce. (Women at work were also featured in the 1943 and 1944 issues of Weyerhaeuser News.)
Feature photo spread in the 1942 issue of Weyerhaeuser News highlighting the work of women at the company (click to enlarge).
The company’s self-published history Traditions Through the Trees: Weyerhaeuser’s First 100 Years noted that "This included jobs not normally previously open to women such as operating heavy sawmill machinery, trucks, log loaders, railroads, and more." Across the industry, the women who filled the sawmill jobs were known popularly as "Pauline Bunyans" or "the daughters of Paul Bunyan," or sometimes "lumberettes." At Weyerhaeuser, some of these new workers earned compliments along the lines of "The best man we ever had on that job was a woman."
Many photos documenting working women during the WWII era can be found in the Weyerhaeuser Company Records in the FHS Archives. Browse these photos via the FHS Image Database, and view a slideshow of highlights below.
For more on Weyerhaeuser women at work during the 1940s, also see the clip below from the 2001 film 100 Years: Women, Work, and Weyerhaeuser:
