World War II changed the face of Evansville, Indiana. In December 1941, the city was still recovering from the Great Depression, yet within three months, a series of blockbuster announcements transformed the region. Several corporations received major defense contracts to manufacture parts and ammunitions, while two new installations were launched: a shipyard to construct Landing Ship Tanks and a factory to manufacture P-47 airplanes. Industrial employment rose dramatically, producing social, economic, and racial tensions as thousands of newcomers poured into a city that lacked adequate housing and public facilities. The citizens of Evansville persevered, and most workers stayed following the end of the war. One federal official commented that the city--not just its many defense plants--deserved the coveted Army-Navy "E" (for excellence) award.

Details"Home Front Warriors" is the third book in a series of Evansville and Tri-state history books by Harold Morgan. Previous books in this series are "Home Front Heroes" and "Home Town History". Evansvilleʼs most renowned WWII products were the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter and the Landing Ship Tank; the LST. This book endeavors to illustrate how the devoted employees built the components and assembled the P-47 and the LST. The authorʼs goal is to provide as many war-time production employee photos as space allowed.Harold Morgan lived the war years and a total of 15 years of his young life immediately west of the airport and Republic Aviation. The many test flights and machine-gun test firing sounds became common enough to the author as a child as to be generally unnoticed.After collecting 40,000 historical photos and images of various subjects, the author wants to use as many of his photo collection as possible. The author selected 500 of these photos to illustrate how these war winning products were built and used.

From our contemporary vantage point, we should take the time to look back to how people in American communities lived at the beginning of the 20th century. The focus of this work is Evansville - in the early 1900s, the only emerging metropolis between Louisville and St. Louis, and then the radial center of a hinterland stretching in all directions for at least 100 miles. Evansville illustrates how the city landscape changed because of the early industrial era, how people made a living and related to each other, and how they spent their leisure time. About one-fifth of the images in this collection focus on the residents of the Evansville region: the Tri-State of southwestern Indiana, western Kentucky, and southern Illinois, which has been Evansville's service area since the 1850s.

During World War II, the city of Evansville manufactured vast amounts of armaments that were vital to the Allied victory. The Evansville Ordnance Plant made 96 percent of all .45-caliber ammunition used in the war, while the Republic Aviation Plant produced more than 6,500 P-47 Thunderbolts--almost half of all P-47s built during the war. At its peak, the local shipyard employed upward of eighteen thousand men and women who forged 167 of the iconic Landing Ship Tank vessels. In this captivating and fast-paced account, University of Evansville historian James Lachlan MacLeod reveals the enormous influence these wartime industries had on the social, economic and cultural life of the city.

Tri-State was impacted during the war yars. You will see how the needed infrastructure was created, how local businesses were impacted and how the community came together.