This story is the first feature in a new Vox special project, Changing With Our Climate, a limited series exploring Indigenous solutions to extreme weather rooted in history — and the future.
Alaska
“The Land Turned to Liquid”: The USCG’s Response to the Alaska Quake
U.S. Shore Guard Information
[By Beth L. Crumley, Assistant Historian, United States Coast Guard]
The land transformed to fluid. A lengthy piece of the seaward side of the level…an area almost a mile long and also as long as 6 hundred feet wide-compacted, plunged, and afterwards moved right into the bay… guys detected the water, realizing for anything – woods, boxes, debris-to survive. One holds on to the side of the crack prior to he also, dropped in. In the water, several of the sufferers were captured in a whirlpool of water as well as particles… It was as if the planet were ingesting every person… -Henry Water Fountain, The Excellent Quake
In his current publication, well-known author Henry Water fountain defined the destruction that took place March 27, 1964, at 5:36 p.m. Alaska Requirement Time. That day, the greatest quake ever before tape-recorded in The United States and Canada struck southerly Alaska. Long-term practically 5 mins, the megathrust quake, gauging 9.2 on the Richter range, took place when the Aleutian Mistake burst near University Arm in Royal Prince William Noise 74 miles east of Anchorage. There, where the Pacific Plate subducts the North American Plate, 600 miles of geological fault were torn disconnected. The “Excellent Quake” triggered dirt liquefaction, ground cracks, architectural collapses, tidal waves, as well as the fatality of 131 Alaskans.
On that particular eventful day in Anchorage, the motion of the planet was mild in the beginning, a minor rolling as well as rolling. As opposed to going away, nonetheless, the motion expanded terrible. The planet heaved as well as dropped as shockwaves surged, come with by a deep holler. The beachfront in Valdez, situated 119 miles east of Anchorage, was abuzz. Among the Alaska Vapor Business’s transformed Freedom ships resulted from show up on a normal freight run from Seattle. The SS Chena had actually steamed right into Valdez quickly after 4:00 p.m., under the command of Capt. Merrill Stewart. Bring much-needed materials, households collected beforehand. Given that it was Great Friday, college was out. Youngsters waited excitedly as crewmembers usually tossed sweet to children on the dock as well as the ship’s chef gave out oranges as well as various other fruits. Regional guys collected on the pier, worked with as dockworkers to discharge the ship after it anchored.
According to Valdez eyewitness Gloria Day, the planet started to heave as well as surge as well as structures fluctuated. To her right, she saw the anchored Chena’s strict increasing at a sharp angle with its bow down as well as props revealed. Stewart was consuming when he really felt the influence of the quake. As he got to the bridge, he saw a swath of the city portable, downturn, as well as slide right into the bay. The anchors, storehouses, as well as canneries of Valdez went away, brushing up away guys, ladies, as well as kids. Chena’s primary designer saw guys ashore operating, just to be come by a significant crack that opened up as well as ingested them. Those still to life were required to grind their means via swimming pools of mud as well as waste as the community’s drain system appeared right into hot springs of dirty fluid.
What the heaving planet left unblemished was leveled by the following tidal wave. A wave 200 feet high struck Shoup Bay near the Valdez inlet. The Union Oil Business containers, located on the beachfront, burst, firing up a huge fire. A submarine landslide triggered a bedlam in the harbor, drawing SS Chena down as well as pounding the ship continuously right into the harbor base. The Chena endured the pummeling as well as radioed, “The community of Valdez, Alaska, simply ruptured right into fires. The entire dock is afire as well as the containers at Union [Oil Company] as well as the various other anchors have actually begun to shed.” Chena endured with the loss of 3 crewmembers—among a cardiovascular disease as well as 2 eliminated by dropping freight. Ashore, 28 homeowners passed away within mins of the quake.
The scenario in the indigenous town of Chenega was equally as dreadful. Situated on a little island in Royal prince William Noise, in what has actually been referred to as “lovely seclusion,” Chenega was residence to 68 individuals. The island was defined by high hillsides increasing from the sea, studded with evergreen trees. Improved a hill, the town itself was situated on a little cove. A Russian Orthodox Church rested at the facility of the town as well as a little schoolhouse on top of a little hillside.
Friday early morning dawned great as well as cloudy at Chenega. In the schoolhouse, instructor Kris Madsen got ready for motion picture evening as well as the attribute was Your house on Haunted Hillside. She as well as a close friend eliminated workdesks in the schoolhouse to include chairs as well as a display, and afterwards she mosted likely to bring water from a neighboring fish pond. When the planet began to tremble, she looked towards the cove as well as saw the water decline as well as go away, disclosing a canyon greater than 120 feet deep. The initial wave got here much less than a min right into the quake. 2 mins later on, a bigger wave, 35 feet high, collapsed right into Chenega, leveling the town as well as almost getting to the schoolhouse. When it declined, the beachfront, a lot of the residences, as well as the church were merely gone. Little was left other than an area of particles that filled up the cove as well as prolonged 5 miles right into the noise. Those that endured, several hurt as well as in shock, gathered with each other on the hill. Twenty-six individuals, consisting of 13 kids, greater than one third of the town’s populace, had actually passed away.
In the community of Seward, splashed oil covered the water, ignited, as well as was pressed onto land by the following waves. One survivor claimed, “It was a spooky point to see-a significant trend of fire cleaning onto land.” Radio web traffic reported, “SS Alaska Requirement reports the entire beachfront in Seward is afire as well as if a [Coast Guard] cutter neighbors, could be able to assist.”
As a matter of fact, Shore Guard possessions in the quake area had actually taken significant damages. LORAN Terminal Sitkinak reported, “LORAN out of procedure. Repair time unidentified, possibly days at finest. Water pipe as well as electric wire damaged. 5 inch as well as even more fractures in the majority of wall surfaces. Deck resolved 3 to 6 inches in some areas of terminal. Antenna still stands.” The terminal later on reported, “Little shakes still taking place. No water stress at terminal because of damaged pipelines….No electric power in barracks….2 of 3 tanks broke…Transformer in transmitter structure melted. Fire snuffed out.”
In spite of the complication brought on by the unraveling catastrophe, radio web traffic reported that the Shore Guard action was underway: “[Coast Guard Cutter] Sedge en course to Valdez. [Coast Guard Cuter] Bittersweet en course to Seward. [Coast Guard Cutter] Storis as well as [Coast Guard Cutter] Sorrel continuing towards Royal prince William Noise. [CGC] Minnetonka staying Cape Sarichef location. Immediate program for all vessels continuing local towns as well as aid as well as report.”
In a 2007 meeting, Shore Guard Lt. Peter Corson stated, “I remained in my residence in Cordova consuming supper when the quake struck. Our residence came practically totally off the structure. I diminished to the dock. It had actually divided in fifty percent as well as was heaving to and fro. We needed to wait up until the void shut previously hurdling it to reach [Coast Guard Cutter] Sedge.”
According to Corson, the Sedge, a buoy tender went to “charlie problem,” with engines down for upkeep. Bought to Valdez, the team clambered to obtain underway. While transiting Cordova’s 60-foot-deep delivery network, the water degree went down as well as Sedge came to relax on the network base. Sedge reported, “We are swamped in the center of Kodiak Network.”
10 mins later on, water hurried back right into the network refloating Sedge, which after that continued to Valdez, reporting, “We are afloat as well as underway to Valdez. No evident damages.” Soon, Sedge observed the destruction at Chenega as well as radioed, “Community of Chenega ruined. Fifty percent of populace missing out on. They need aid terribly.”
At concerning the very same time Sedge obtained struck, among its crewmembers, Petty Police officer Third Course Frank Reed, got on leave photographing wild animals on the south end of neighboring Kayak Island. Dropping rocks left him with a damaged leg. 3 of his shipmates attempted to conserve him, however were struck by a tidal bore. Shore Guard Area Seventeen was later on alerted of Reed’s situation. “Tidal bore struck his device. Reed, Frank O. EN3 eliminated throughout wave. Perished as well as rinsed to sea.” Reed’s body was never ever located.
At Kodiak, the quake did not save the Shore Guard air detachment (AIRDET). Among the upkeep team remembered water hurrying continuously right into the garage as the teams clambered to leave the airplane. A C-123 airplane endured salt-water emersion to the degree of its floorboards, however all the airplane were ultimately transferred to security as well as considered functional.
3 of the AIRDET’s HU-16 Albatrosses efficiently left to evaluate damages on Kodiak Island, as well as the eastern shore of the Kenai Peninsula approximately Cordova as well as Chef Inlet. Shore Guard CG-1271 reported serious damages in Seward: “Approximated 50 residences ruined. All dock location ruined. All train backyard harmed. Oil container still shedding. No interactions.” Oddly sufficient, the pilot reported just 3 harmed structures in Chenega. Maybe he was not familiar with Chenega as well as saw the vast swath of brand-new coastline, not aware that a lot of the town was gone.
Back at AIRDET Kodiak, the garage was considered dangerous as well as all the devices as well as devices unserviceable. It was reported, “No quote can be made from go back to regular procedures. Anticipate a minimum of a number of weeks. Believe can preserve ability needed to deal with existing emergency situation.” As a matter of fact, Shore Guard airplane had actually been proactively checking damages, as well as HU-16 CG-5848 efficiently left stranded employees from suburbs. Shore Guard airplane likewise situated 7 bodies drifting in Kalsin Bay.
Later On, the Sedge reported 1,000 Valdez homeowners were leaving by land. “Irregular trends based Sedge power watercraft. Intact. Mild shakes are still really felt. SS Chena as well as Sedge on call to establish success of emptying effort.” Alaska-based U.S. Military devices got here as well as figured out that land emptying can be finished without the ships’ aid. Shore Guard Cutter Sorrel later on reported it was continuing to Chenega to evaluate damages as well as provide whatever aid feasible.
Those posted at Cape Hinchinbrook Light Terminal were still on side. “Tremblings still really felt every [two to three] mins as well as likewise loud sounds from all components of the island. Demand suggest if these shakes are really felt in various other locations. It seems as well as seems like the island is attempting to rise in the center.” After 2 days of duplicated shakes, Cape Hinchinbrook obtained the complying with message from Area Seventeen leader, Back Admiral George Synon:
I am completely knowledgeable about the tough as well as treacherous scenario currently being dealt with by you as well as your team. I take pride in the guts you have actually revealed so far as well as of the initiatives you have actually made to maintain crucial devices operating.
Please notify all hands that I am certain under your management they will certainly remain to present the fearlessness as well as dedication to task, which are constantly the mark of Shore Guardsmen despite risk.
In spite of the admiral’s words of motivation, the scenario at Cape Hinchinbrook degraded. As a result of a number of shakes in one hr, terminal employees made a decision to leave to a hillside behind the installment. They reported, “Will certainly examine radio regularly. Tools will certainly be left operating as well as likewise examined regularly.” Shore Guard Cutter Sedge obtained orders to leave Cape Hinchinbrook’s employees. Orders were offered to “Close down all devices as well as protected structure as well as product simply before separation offering team is not jeopardized while doing so.”
On March 28th, the day of the quake, Head of state Lyndon Johnson stated Alaska a hot spot. The days complying with the quake were referred to as a “blur,” stressed by minutes of anxiety as well as scenes of turmoil as well as destruction.
In spite of damages to a variety of Shore Guard setups, Shore Guard participants resolved the turmoil, maintained their devices as functional as feasible as well as supplied aid where required. Their experiences function as one more instance of the Shore Guard slogan Semper Paratus, “Always Ready.”
This write-up shows up thanks to The Lengthy Blue Line as well as is duplicated below in a shortened type. The original might be located below.
The viewpoints shared here are the writer’s as well as not always those of The Maritime Exec.
Since the late 1700s, the Juneau Ice Field, interconnected glaciers that stretch across 1,500 square miles of Alaska and British Columbia, has lost about a quarter of its volume. But it’s an “incredibly worrying” phenomenon that took place between 2010 and 2020 that has scientists especially concerned: The remote swath, which features the famous Mendenhall Glacier, dropped 1.4 cubic miles of ice annually during that decade-long period, double the rate of ice melt before 2010, reports the New York Times. In their study published Tuesday in Nature Communications, researchers add that rates of “area shrinkage” were five times faster from 2015 to 2019 than they were from 1979 to 1990.
The team led by Newcastle University glaciologist Bethan Davies pulled together decades of glacial measurements using aerial views, surveys, maps, and satellite imagery, supplementing that with in-the-field verification and research into tree rings and peat to try to figure out previous environments in the ice field. What they found was that every single one of the area’s 1,050 glaciers receded between 1770 and 2019, with 108 glaciers vanishing altogether; dozens of new lakes formed as a result. Scientists say the melt is affected by tourism; soot from wildfires that lands on the ice and expedites melting; and the wide, flat surface of thinning ice that further exposes it to warming air, among other factors.
Just because Alaska is a far-flung spot for most of the planet’s inhabitants, the glacial melt there matters “tremendously,” per the Times, which notes that “in no other region of the planet are melting glaciers predicted to contribute more to global sea-level rise this century.” Plus, scientists fear that ice fields elsewhere, including in Greenland, Norway, and other Arctic-adjacent locations, could meet the same fate, per Reuters. Global warming will likely continue to further exacerbate the situation, with one climatologist warning of a possible “death spiral” for the glaciers, per the AP. “If we reduce carbon, then we have more hope of retaining these wonderful ice masses,” Davies tells the Times. “The more carbon we put in, the more we risk irreversible, complete removal of them.” (More glacial melt stories.)
When Priscilla Frankson thinks about home, she thinks about ice — thick sea ice stretching out toward the horizon.
Frankson, an Iñupiaq masters student in Tribal Leadership and Governance at Arizona State University, is from Point Hope (Tikiġaq), Alaska, a small city about 125 miles above the Arctic Circle and one of the northernmost communities in the United States.
“For us, the ice is a part of land, even though every single year it changes and it’s always different,” she said. “I think of the way that my boots kind of crackle over the ice, or the different sounds that it makes when there’s a very thin kind of sheet of snow on the top, and how it’s a little bit softer.”
In Point Hope, where summer temperatures rarely break 60 degrees, ice and cold are a part of life. Thick, reliable sea ice is essential for harvesting whales, a key part of the subsistence diets, a lifestyle built around harvesting wild foods for personal and community use, of Point Hope’s Iñupiaq residents.
Growing up, even when temperatures reached 40 below zero, Frankson would bundle up to go play outside in the snow or go hunting on the ice, while whales passed by. And on cold, cloudless nights, the northern lights would be spectacularly clear, flashing and dancing across the sky. It was a sight that Frankson said still seems too incredible to be real — even after years of observing it.
But climate change is threatening all of this.
Alaska is warming up to three times faster than the rest of the world, and the Arctic is warming nearly double that. Alaska’s North Slope, where Point Hope is located, saw an average annual temperature increase of 6 degrees since 1971. Since 1970, the US as a whole has warmed by 2.6 degrees.
Although the difference between, say, a day that is 0 degrees and one that is 5 degrees may seem like no big deal, the impact of these rising averages is immense.
Sea ice is forming later in the year than usual and is not as predictable as it used to be. As the permafrost thaws, siġlauqs — the traditional ice cellars carved into the land — are caving in or flooding. The animals that people rely on for food and goods — whales, fish, caribou — are also growing harder to find.
Despite the challenges, Frankson, who researches the social impact of declining caribou populations, says that Iñupiaq people are not going to change their entire way of life, but instead are making small adjustments to changing conditions. “We’re not scared enough to stop hunting, we’re not scared enough to stop going out on the ice, we’re not scared enough to do any of this,” she said. “We’re just learning how to adapt, as we always have.”
To adapt to the warming climate, Indigenous people in Alaska are relying on their deep understanding and respect for the land, a kind of humility developed over countless generations. “You can’t really change the Arctic,” Frankson said. “You can only change with the Arctic.”
Yes, daily life in Alaska — with its northern lights, its dependence on ice and the movement of caribou — may feel unrelatable. But this way of living in tune with the environment and gracefully adapting to a changing climate is becoming increasingly essential for the rest of the country. The strategies that Indigenous people in Alaska are developing show that sometimes the best forms of climate adaptation are achievable, local solutions.
Generations of extreme conditions have equipped Alaska Natives with the willingness and ability to embrace this kind of adaptation. As the impacts of climate change grow increasingly severe in the rest of the country, we could all learn from that.
Swimming may not seem like an adaptation to global warming. But in Alaska, it is.
Hundreds of miles south of Point Hope, in Bethel, Alaska, the Kuskokwim River is the heart of the community, providing food, transportation, employment, and community throughout the year.
The only way to get to Bethel is by plane, which can be very expensive, or by the river. In the winter, snow machines zip through town, heading up and down the frozen river to the dozens of villages that depend on Bethel for food, supplies, health care, and much more. In the summer, people travel by boat to spend days at their fish camps on the river, smoking salmon to eat throughout the rest of the year. In between, when the ice is forming or beginning to break up, the river can be dangerous: too frozen for boats, but too unstable for snow machines and cars.
“You can’t really change the Arctic. You can only change with the Arctic.”
Lately, those shoulder seasons have been shifting, extending, and becoming terrifyingly unpredictable.
Every year, flooding and erosion get worse, fish are dying, and the winter ice is becoming more dangerous. Kevin Whitworth, the executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, says declining salmon populations are especially concerning. “It’s hard times,” he said. “Our people are subsistence-based people. They’re not economy-based people. They rely on the river as their grocery store. Their life is the river.”
According to the Federal Subsistence Management Program, rural Alaskans harvest 295 pounds of wild food per person, more than the 255 pounds of domestic meat, fish, and poultry that the average American consumes per year. Fifty-six percent of the statewide subsistence harvest is made up of fish. Beyond its cultural and community importance, subsistence is crucial for Alaska Natives because of the high cost of groceries. In a study of 261 urban communities across the country, the Council for Community and Economic Research found that the three most expensive places for groceries were Juneau, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. Prices in more remote communities like Bethel are often even higher.
Salmon’s drastic decline can be attributed to a number of causes, including warming waters and increased offshore trawling. Every year, ocean trawlers fishing primarily for pollock catch, kill, and discard about 141 million pounds of salmon, halibut, and other species, an extraordinarily wasteful practice that Indigenous people and other groups in Alaska have been rallying against. Meanwhile, communities upriver are severely limited in the number of salmon they can take from the river. “Right now, the salmon are crashing and we’re seeing big changes with the climate,” Whitworth says.
Bethel Vice Mayor Sophie Swope, who also sits on the Orutsararmiut Native tribal council, says that river conditions have become more dangerous for fishing and travel. “It used to be pretty dependable that you could just go drive out during the winter and it would be fine and safe,” Swope said. “Now, you have to keep an ear out for what the river conditions are.”
Whitworth, who is Athabascan from McGrath, says that because of salmon’s increasing scarcity, people are taking greater risks to get fish even though the river ice forms later in the season and is less reliable, leading to accidents and drownings.
So, facing declining salmon populations and a dangerous river, Indigenous people in the region are shifting their norms, too. While chinook and chum salmon are restricted, sockeye salmon, a less traditionally popular and available fish, has become an increasingly viable alternative.
Chinook has been a staple of Indigenous subsistence diets for generations, but people are doing what they must to use what is available now. Traditional salmon fishing techniques make it hard to separate different species of salmon, so Whitworth and the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission have been encouraging local fishers to use dip nets, large circular nets that allow people to target sockeye.
In the commission’s 2023 end-of-season report, sockeye made up about 40 percent of the estimated total salmon harvest on the lower Kuskokwim, a number that Whitworth says is much higher than it used to be.
As warming continues to impact the river, the local community has also been taking steps to protect its people.
In 2014, Yup’ik elder Beverly Hoffman and others finally succeeded in a decades-long effort to build a community pool in Bethel, which is now a resource for people throughout the region to learn how to swim, preparing them for an increasingly unpredictable river. Hoffman and others recognize that they cannot control the river, but they can help prepare the community to survive its dangers.
Swimming lessons and dip nets might sound like tiny changes in the face of global climate trends, but these are the kinds of local adaptations that will help communities thrive in a warming world. Outside of Alaska, planting trees to create more shade in urban heat islands or hiring more lifeguards for public pools could have a similar impact.
But these solutions are within reach and meaningful; they literally save lives.
Such approachable adaptations mean understanding that although we have a limited ability to change the climate, there are many more options to change our own behavior.
“This is what Indigenous knowledge is”
As temperatures continue to rise, Alaska Natives are turning to intergenerational knowledge and community observations to build a wealth of data that they hope will urge non-Indigenous decision-makers to listen to what they have to say.
In Unalaska, the largest city in the Aleutian Chain, the Qawalangin Tribe is gathering community feedback on climate change and what the people are experiencing. The tribe will then use these observations to help develop its climate resilience plans, which include culture camps with traditional dances and classes on kayak making, traditional food nights, and water quality testing programs.
Vera Metcalf is the executive director of the Eskimo Walrus Commission, which represents 19 coastal communities. Metcalf says that Indigenous walrus hunters have adapted to climate change by participating in research projects led by agencies like the US Fish and Wildlife Service. “In the past, we were largely ignored in research occurring in our homeland and waters,” she said. “When you combine the two ways of thinking, it really becomes a rich resource of information.”
Changing With Our Climate: A limited series exploring Indigenous solutions to extreme weather rooted in history — and the future
There’s no easy fix for the planet, but Indigenous people have simple solutions rooted in the depth of their knowledge. This story is the first installment of a new Vox series exploring frameworks for responding to extreme weather and the climate crisis. Every month through October, we’ll be publishing a new feature that centers an Indigenous community responding to various aspects of climate disasters, from major storms like hurricanes and typhoons, to extreme heat, rising seas, wildfires, and spreading aridity.
Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borade, Iñupiaq from Utqiaġvik, is the project coordinator and community liaison at the Alaska Arctic Observatory and Knowledge Hub, where she works with observers from four communities in the Alaskan Arctic.
Community observers share details like air temperature, wind speed, ice conditions, and animal observations, sometimes sending in photos of animals being harvested. Glenn-Borade and her team then take this data and share it with agencies like the US National Weather Service, which releases forecasts for the region. Glenn-Borade says that, historically, these forecasts prioritized larger ships offshore rather than Indigenous people living on the coast and hopes that using local observations will lead to better forecasts for Indigenous communities. “That kind of foresight of what the conditions will be can really make a difference between life or death,” she said.
Glenn-Borade also says this kind of local observation provides invaluable historical context about how the coast and the ice have changed over the years, what is within normal ranges, and what is unexpected.
“That’s what Indigenous knowledge is,” she said. “It is constant tracking and understanding and monitoring what’s going on and being prepared to respond on the fly.”
As the world warms, these examples from Alaska offer a warning that we can’t simply do everything the way we used to. Saudi Arabia, for example, can no longer ignore the deadly impacts heat is having on Hajj. Places like the Pacific Northwest can no longer count on mild summers and will save lives by investing in cooling infrastructure. But they also offer hope that if we can shift away from trying to change the environment to suit us, instead of the other way around, there may be a chance of finding creative, unexpected ways of changing with our climate.
When I spoke with Glenn-Borade recently, she told me she and her people are proud “that we’re still here. We’re not going to die off. Our languages aren’t going to die off. We will adapt. We’ll continue to adapt our lifestyles as the environment changes.”
Mom or Dad is at work all day, or out of the picture altogether. The spouse is at home taking care of the kiddos but needs to get out of the house to work or pursue an education. There is just one obstacle, but it is a big one – day care. In Alaska and throughout the nation quality day care is hard to find and expensive.
Imagine the issue resolved. Imagine that high quality day care is widely available and jaw-droppingly inexpensive at about $8 to $10 per child per day. Day care includes snacks and a hot lunch. It includes a ratio of 1 to 10, staff to children. And it includes basic health care.
The day care facility may be a new building specifically built as a fully equipped modern day care center, or it may be a local school building. It opens early and stays open late to accommodate elastic work schedules. Some day care facilities are open 24 hours a day, six days a week. At the end of the day, select day care centers send home an evening meal for the parent and children.
Impossible but tantalizing daydream? No, not a mere daydream — part of our American history. Parents demanded it. Politicians wanted it. And it was done. For a few brief years the United States had a generously funded day care program across the nation.
Early in the 1940s the United States had hurled itself into war against the Axis powers. The men were gone, engaged in the war effort. Graphics of Rosie the Riveter were everywhere, urging women to replace men in critical war industries. Maybe Rosie didn’t have children, or maybe she had a kindly mother who watched her children while she was hammering rivets. But millions of real women were alone at home with their children. How could they work full-time in war industries and be full-time mothers at the same time? As the New York Times reported in 2019:
“The major source of funding to remedy this came from the Lanham Act of 1940, which enabled a number of social programs during the war years. Beginning in 1942, the Lanham Act funded the Federal Works Agency to provide group child care in areas of ‘war impact.’ But far from instantly setting up a cheerful child care center on every block, the act created a complex patchwork of public and private entities, which in some cases sustained existing centers, and in others allowed communities to set up new ones.”
According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, even at the outset of the program the “need for the child care centers was estimated to be much greater than the services provided.” Nevertheless, it was an extraordinary accomplishment:
“The wartime child care programs were locally planned… Overall, as many as 635 communities across the nation were granted funds to operate one or more centers. Projects included programs for preschool and school-age children. In July 1944, when the wartime child care program reached its apex, 52,440 preschoolers and 76,917 school-age children were enrolled.”
By mid-1945 it was clear that the Allies had won the war. The prevailing male sentiment was that it was time for Rosie the Riveter and her female factory colleagues to pack up and go back home. They were urged to take their “traditional” place in the kitchen and give the factory jobs back to men. And to make sure the women did that, politicians immediately slashed funds for national day care, quickly dismantling the program. Pushback ensued. Women and children demonstrated in the streets. There were write-in campaigns, according to the CRS report:
“Approximately one month after this announcement, the FWA [Federal Works Agency] reported it had received communications from 26 states and the District of Columbia (1,155 letters, 318 wires, 794 postcards and petitions signed by 3,647 individuals), urging continuation of the program. Principal reasons given were the need of servicemen’s wives to continue employment until their husbands returned, the ongoing need of mothers who were the sole support of their children, and a lack of inadequacy of other forms of care in the community.”
Nevertheless, sexism and discrimination prevailed. Within a few short years most of the national day care program had been wiped out. Vestiges remained through the 1960s, mostly in California. Then the national day care program was entirely gone.
So here we are today. Day care woes abound. Tax breaks and other marginal incentives of today cannot build a national day care program. However, eight decades ago the Federal Works Agency did. We have the precedent and the need but lack politicians with the vision.
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