Wartime Pioneer
A look back at a pioneering woman who entered welding during World War II.
March 1943
In the early decades of the 20th century, welding and related trades in the U.S. were primarily men’s business. That changed during the 1940s, when women stepped into the manufacturing jobs left vacant by the millions of American men who’d gone off to war. One of these women was Mrs. Alfred L. Johnson, the first female graduate of the welding program at the Witt Trade School in Decatur, Alabama. Mrs. Johnson, a former school teacher, went on to work in the shipyards of the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company after graduating from the trade school.
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