Originally published in Points West in Winter 2010
A Wartime Record: The Winchester Record
Mary Robinson
Housel Director, McCracken Research Library
The Winchester Record was a company publication produced twice monthly by the personnel department for the employees of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. First issued in August 1918 in the final months of World War I, the Record is described on the masthead as “A Medium of Fellowship and Cooperation among Winchester people.” That medium had the potential to reach a very large audience, since by the fall of 1918, the number of employees at the Winchester plant exceeded 20,000—literally a small city of people within the confines of New Haven, Connecticut. In fact, the first issue features a letter from the mayor congratulating the company on its new magazine.
These early issues of the Record convey the impression of a cohesive and fun-loving workforce. Regular columns about company history or tributes to employees are interspersed with features about shooting matches, sporting teams, and musical programs. Stories and poetry are accompanied by photographs and clever cartoons. At a time of national uncertainty, the Record tried to instill camaraderie and a shared sense of purpose among Winchester employees, as well as highlight the talents of the average worker.
Despite this informal and rather folksy approach, the Record suggests, in stark terms, Winchester’s prominent role in the war. While light humor invests almost every page, between the lines are both anxiety about developments overseas and stout determination to exceed production quotas for firearms and ammunition destined for soldiers fighting in the trenches.
From the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, the company supplied the Allied Powers with an ever-increasing volume of materials. With America’s entrance into the war, Winchester only ramped up production of rifles, shotguns, telescopic sights, cartridges, and mortar shells.
On every page, then, an unequivocal message: Working for the company is working for the country. The Record is filled with pointed illustrations of the need for increased output and for safety on the job. The real enemy is wasted time or materials, along with Kaiser Wilhelm, to whom satiric verses are often dedicated.
A typical article titled “The First Billion” heads the August 30, 1918, issue. The author, A.C. Jewett, describes the exacting work of manufacturing cartridges and lists the numbers of operations, tools, and gauges required for each part: a staggering 94 operations that used 351 tools and 108 gauges for every shell. He concludes with a characteristic boast: “This plant has contributed a large part of the two and one half billions of cartridges accepted by the Government up to August, 1918. No efforts have been spared to give our Army the very best cartridge it is possible to produce.” Wartime demands and the push for productivity lend a didactic edge to the substance of these issues. One column celebrates employee achievements while another admonishes workers in the virtues of thrift, generosity, and loyalty. Sermonizing is pervasive in the Record. Cultural norms like conformity, patriotism, and the Yankee work ethic find their voice—only more stridently since these virtues are understood to be critical to defending democracy.
In his book about Winchester factory history, Herbert G. Houze calls “Rounds of the Plant” a gossipy column that was devoted to the activities of ordinary workers. We read about male employees inducted into the service and female employees knitting socks for soldiers. By this time the factory was running double shifts, and the strain on the work force and management must have been very great. So critical was this production to the conduct of the war that Winchester and certain other companies received exemptions from work week restrictions enacted by the federal government.
The Record’s striking illustrated covers reinforce this martial aim. The first issue shows a doughboy with an army rifle in his grasp going “over the top.” Behind him a soldier fires a Model 1918 Browning automatic rifle. In the background, on a red-striped field that suggests the American flag, stands the Winchester factory. In another dramatic scene, barefoot sailors clad only in white trousers load shells into a large gun. The caption reads, “Where our big shells are going!” These illustrations place employees and their work right in the thick of the action.
On the back covers a lively campaign is waged for American dollars. Liberty loan or thrift stamp drives occupy full pages with appeals to the pocketbooks of patriots. Thrift stamps were an inexpensive way to support the war, and the smiling, handsome soldier’s face superimposed on a shining quarter must have been hard to resist. Jingoism notwithstanding, the visual style of the Record is arresting and even powerful. Cartoons, illustrations, and bold cover art demonstrate how pictures rouse emotions and unite Americans in single-minded purpose.
The tone of these issues is one of studied cheerfulness that barely conceals anxiety. Patriotic zeal is tempered by mirth, and cynicism is reserved entirely for the enemy. Today’s reader recognizes threats that were poorly understood at the time. For example, a cartoon depicts several women dressed in coats and mufflers gathered—perhaps on a break from work—in a swirling wind. The caption reads, “Fighting the ‘Flu’.” Fresh air was thought to protect against influenza, a pandemic that ravaged the American population in late fall 1918 and killed more people world-wide than had died in the war. “Quitters” illustrates how attitudes at home were scrutinized in the light of the soldier’s sacrifices.
The Winchester Record remains a forceful reminder that the Winchester Repeating Arms Company stood at the nerve center of the country’s preoccupation with the world war. Both in style and subject, it expresses the pervasive fears and hopes of Americans at a time of national crisis. With the signing of the armistice in November 1918, the focus shifts to stories of veterans returning from Europe and the continued need to support charitable agencies. A lighter mood anticipating the “Roaring Twenties” soon prevails, in which women with bobbed hair are pictured in decidedly new roles and daring fashions. The Winchester Record was issued for the last time in January 1921.
Mary Robinson has been an active professional in the Wyoming library community since 1993. She holds an MLS from Emporia State University in Kansas and a Special Collections Certification from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. She was appointed the Housel Director of the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West on April 1, 2010.
For more information about the lesser-known aspects of Winchester Repeating Arms Company history and publications (MS 20, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company Archive), or other firearms-related collections in the library, contact Robinson at [email protected] or 307-578-4063.
All images are from MS20, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company Archive, ca. 1918. Gift of the Olin Corporation, Winchester Arms Collection.
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