- 1 “A Job Well Done …”: Sturgeon Bay in World War II, As Told by the Workers Themselves. Sturgeon Bay, Wis.: Door County Maritime Museum, [in partnership with The History Company]; 2000. 1 VHS videocassette (15:00 minutes)(THC [i.e., The History Company] ; 1). Notes: Prepared to accompany an exhibit at the Door County Maritime Museum (located in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin), this fifteen-minute video tells the story of the four shipyards in Sturgeon Bay which altogether produced two hundred fifty-eight new ships for the World War II effort, including cargo ships, supply ships, and war ships.
In less than five years, the total employment at these four Sturgeon Bay shipyards grew from less than a handful to over 7,000 workers (including many women welders), transforming the small town of Sturgeon Bay into a boom town. Two government housing projects provided living quarters for six hundred families and five hundred individual workers, as well as a city bus service was set up to shuttle employees between work and home.
All the ships from the Sturgeon Bay yards were built to fit through the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Mississippi River. Peterson Boatworks produced thirty-seven motor launches, aircraft rescue vessels and one-hundred-ten-foot-long submarine chasers. Sturgeon Bay Boatworks (now known as the Palmer Johnson company) produced forty-three freight and aircraft rescue boats for the U.S. Army. Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding & Drydocks produced eighty-five tugs, tenders, and cargo, supply and retrieving vessels. L.D. Smith Shipbuilding produced ninety-three frigates, net tenders, tankers, cargo vessels, and gun boats, including thirty-eight submarine chasers one-hundred-seventy-three-feet-long (known as “PC’s”).
To purchase a copy of this video, contact the Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, either by telephone at 920/743-2766 or through their website at http://dcmm.org.
CREDITS: Producer, Molly Hauser Natwick. Writer & Director, Patrick Gary. Executive producers: Jon Gast, Christine Randall, June Larson. Videography: James Parish, Patrick Gary, Gary Edelburg. Production: Shawn Erickson, Carl Romney. Historical footage: Mike Kelsey, John Thenell, Robert Wolter. Still photography: The W.C. Schroeder Collection, The Door County Maritime Museum. Background information: Jacinda Duffin, Laurie Flanigan, Cleida Galligan, Arnold Geitner, Mike Kelsey, Henry King, George Oram, Gerhard C.F. Miller, Eunice Schlintz, Frank Schneider, Arnold Schwartz, Violet Vieau. Very special thanks to John Enigl, Jim Evans, Betty Krueger, Dorothy Mosgaller, Betty Peterson, Bob Solomon, Don Townsend, Gordon Weber. Editor, Patrick Gary. Editing facilities: Big Creek Productions, a company of Fox Road Communications.