Newspaper Twin Cities Ordnance News ([New Brighton, Minn.]) 1942-19?? Twin Cities Ordinance news
About Twin Cities Ordnance News ([New Brighton, Minn.]) 1942-19??
Twin Cities Ordnance News was the employee newspaper of Twin Cities Ordnance Plant (TCOP), a U.S. government-owned, contractor-operated ammunition manufacturing plant located in the Twin Cities suburbs of New Brighton and Arden Hills, Minnesota, which began operation during World War II.
The plant opened in March of 1942, producing .30-, .45-, and .50-caliber ammunition rounds for the U.S. military, under the direction of the Federal Cartridge Corporation. The biweekly employee newspaper began publication on May 20, 1942, with editor John W. Forney, news editor Otis J. Dypwick, and women’s editor Margaret Stukel. The eight-page, five-column newspaper was a major avenue of communication between plant management and the plant’s employees. It offered news about TCOP and about plant workers and their activities, want ads, and propaganda to encourage increased production, war bonds sales, and overall support of the war effort.
Over half the employees of the plant, which reached a peak of nearly 26,000 employees in 1943, was female, and the workforce was also racially integrated, including several African American supervisors. The front page of the newspaper’s first issue proclaimed, below a photo of diverse workers arm-in-arm, “Filipino… . nurse… . army man… . Negro factory worker… . guard… .youth… . age… . Chinese… . we’re all part of TCOP… . we’re all part of AMERICA… . and it’s our job to ‘Keep ‘Em Shooting!'”
The paper’s staff eventually increased to include a fourth editor, three art department staffers, two staff photographers, and two circulation managers, and issues grew to twelve pages beginning on May 19, 1943. Publication of the newspaper was discontinued following the July 28, 1943 issue, after the Army Ordnance Department ordered all privately-operated ordnance plants to cease the publication of in-house newspapers in order to save expenses. Publication of the Twin Cities Ordnance News resumed on March 8, 1944, with the explanation that Federal Cartridge Corporation had received permission to fund publication of a smaller four-page newspaper, with the staff reduced to just Dypwick and Stukel. Dypwick left TCOP in December 1944, and he was replaced as editor by Olin Kaupanger.
Though the plant remained active after the war’s end in August 1945, serving as a returned-material center, the employee newspaper ceased publication abruptly following the August 9, 1945 issue.
Provided By: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MNAbout this Newspaper
Title
- Twin Cities Ordnance News ([New Brighton, Minn.]) 1942-19??
Other Title
- Twin Cities Ordinance news
Dates of Publication
- 1942-19??
Created / Published
- [New Brighton, Minn.] : Federal Cartridge Corp., 1942-
Headings
- - Ordnance--Periodicals
- - Ordnance
- - United States--Minnesota--Ramsey--New Brighton
Genre
- Periodicals
Notes
- - Biweekly
- - Vol. 1, no. 1 (May 20, 1942)-
- - "Published for and in the interests of the employees of the Twin Cities Ordnance Plant."
- - Suspended with July 28, 1943, issue; resumed with Mar. 8, 1944, issue.
- - Available on microfilm from the Minnesota Historical Society.
Medium
- volumes
Library of Congress Control Number
- sn90060918
OCLC Number
- 1695697
ISSN Number
- 2997-7894
LCCN Permalink
Additional Metadata Formats
Availability
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