Panel 1: In the Beginning
Photo of Winchester Factory, 1859-1866 located at 9 Artizan Street, New Haven – Winchester Life, 1942

Panel 2: A Brief Detour, then Return to New Haven
Photo of Winchester ad from the company’s 1870 catalog- Herbert Houze, Winchester Repeating Arms Company: its History and Development from 1865 to 1981, copyright 2004
View of Winchester Repeating Arms Company, ca. 1876
Photo: Female Operatives Patching and Packing Bullets, ca. 1877- Connecticut Historical Society

Panel 3: Our Community at Winchester in the Early 20th Century
Photo: “Back in the Long Ago…the Boys of the Barrel Shop, Class of 1908”- Winchester Life, 1942
Photo: Interior View of the Winchester Factory in 1912- Houze
Photo: Winchester Plant, ca. 1915- New Haven Museum and Historical Society
Photo: Winchester Plant with People and a Woman Suffrage Picket Outside, ca. 1916- New Haven Museum and Historical Society
Photo: McDermott’s Tavern and its proprietors, Peter and Rose McDermott, Ashmun Street, ca. 1919- courtesy Suzanne Cooney. Note: The McDermotts emigrated to New Haven from County Leitrim, Ireland. Their tavern became an important gathering place for Winchester workers from 1911 until 1951.

Panel 4: Early Union Efforts at Winchester
Image: Robert M. Lackey, “How the Winchester Repeating Arms Company Rifles its Workers,” International Socialist Review, November 1912

Panel 5: Waxing and Waning: World War I and its Aftermath at Winchester
Image: Women Making Browning Machine Guns- General view of Polishing Shop, Winchester Repeating Arms Company, New Haven, Conn. U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo. http:www.loc.gov./pictures/resource/cph.3c11139

Panel 6: World War II
Images from Winchester Life, 1942-1943

Panel 7: The Struggle to Construct Sense and Meaning…
Images from Winchester Life, 1944-1945

Panel 8: As Winchester workers emerged from World War II…
Images from Winchester Life,1945-1946
Photo: Winchester Safety Outing 1945- courtesy Maryann Davies
Photo: Winchester Workers at McDermott’s Tavern- courtesy Suzanne Cooney. Ms. Cooney wrote that Many of the customers at McDermott’s…were workers from the local Winchester gun factory. Day and evening shift workers had their meals at McDermott’s…In the back room of the bar there was a kitchen. Meals were prepared there by Rose[McDermott], with the help of employees, many of whom lived in the neighborhood…On Friday, [Winchester workers’] pay checks were cashed at McDermotts’. The per check cashing charge was 10 cents. Peter’s son-in-law, James P. Cooney, helped with check cashing on the evening shift… Peter ran the tavern from 1911 until about 1951…The business was then bought by Ed Blakeslee and ran for several years as Blakeslee’s Tavern.

Panel 9: …Works Manager Boak escalated his long-standing campaign against unionization in the pages of Winchester Life
Images from Winchester Life, 1946-1947

Panel 10: Early 1950s (The Plant Around Us)
mages from Winchester Life, 1950-1952
Photo: WELI interview with Winchester employees- courtesy Maryann Davies. Ms. Davies’ father, Edward Doughan, pictured here, worked at Winchester in the 1940s and 1950s and was supervisor of the Brass Casting Shop.

Panel 11: The Brass Mill Story
Winchester made guns, but did you know what else they made?
Image: Winchester Life, 1952

Panel 12: The Birth of the Victory Lodge
Images from International Association of Machinists Local 609 (Victory Lodge) Records, Greater New Haven Labor History Association Archives

Panel 13: Our Community at Winchester Confronts the Cold War
Images from Winchester Life, 1958-1959

Panel 14: Struggle and Change in the early 1960s
Images from Olin News, May 24, 1961; August 18, 1961; May 25, 1962

Panel 15: Early to mid-1960s: Union Members at Work and Play
Images from Local 609 Records

Panels 16-18: The 1969 Strike
Images from Local 609 Records

Panel 19: Business as Usual in the 1970s
Images: Target, January 28, 1977
Cover, New Haven Advocate, October 20, 1976

Panel 20: 1979-1980 Strike
Images from Local 609 Records

Panel 21: Craig Gauthier Comments on the 1979-80 Strike
Photo from Local 609 Records
Text: Oral history, Craig Gauthier

Panel 22: Whirlwinds of Change: USRAC and the Beginning of Science Park
Images from Local 609 Records

Panel 23: The 1985 Christmas Crisis
Images from Local 609 Records

Panel 24: The 1990s: Attempts to Implement the High Performance Work Organization
Images from Local 609 Records
Text: Oral history, Craig Gauthier

Panel 25: Threats and Concessions
Images: Winchester News, January 2, 1959
New Haven Register, March 24, 1975
New Haven Register, June 4, 1985

Panel 26: Parting Shots
Images from Local 609 Records

Oral Histories

Marcia Biederman
Arthur Bosley
Robert Erff
James Foster

Craig Gauthier
Emmanuel Gomez
Claretha McKnight

Marge Ottenbreit
Raymond Simms
Lawrence Young

   
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