| Original caption: “She’s a mother and a grandmother, she works at a United States Arsenal tapering shells for fifty millimeter anti-aircraft guns, and she loves listening to news broadcasts and Bing Crosby. Eva Smuda, age fifty-five, who came to America from Poland at the age of three, has one son in the United States Army, and a son, a daughter, and a son-in-law working with her at the Frankford Arsenal.” Munitions worker Eva Smuda photographed at home, with her 2 prewar radios, a Philco lowboy tombstone radio and a Westinghouse combination phonograph and radio, possibly a Model WR-478. The government’s public relations apparatus placed countless stories in newspapers documenting the contribution of women to the war effort. Typically, these linked a woman’s war work, her continued domestic responsibilities and pleasures, and her relationship to a man in military service. Taken by the federal government’s Office for Emergency Management, these photographs document the life of Eva Smuda, a Polish immigrant who was a widowed mother of 5 adult children and worked at the Frankford Arsenal making antiaircraft shells. These photographs depicted Smuda living with her daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law, who also worked at the nearby Arsenal. Her son in the Army had sent her a memento from Fort Bragg that was featured in the photo essay. The government’s captions explained that she enjoyed giving half a day to her home and half a day to her country. These carefully posed images provide an idealized picture of an American mother contributing to the war effort while maintaining her traditional role at home. Eva Wisniewski Smuda (August 7, 1886 – Oct 1975) married Paul Smuda (March 29, 1882 – November 4, 1925) in 1905. Smuda was a hair spinner, a kind of hairdresser, before the war. The couple had 8 children before Paul’s untimely death; 5 of them survived to adulthood: Cecelia Smuda Napiorkowski (1906 – 1999), who married Walter Napiorkowski (1905 – 1979); Lewis J. Smuda (March 8, 1908 – March 10, 1908); Edward Smuda (August 5, 1909 – January 12, 1911); Frank Smuda (February 20, 1912 – February 1973); Alfred Smuda (November 10, 1913 – April 1984); Edwin P. Smuda (May 13, 1915 – January 4, 1995); Genevieve Smuda Bennett (July 7, 1916 – September 29, 2005), who married Robert J. Bennett (May 20, 1914 – August 22, 1993); and Raymond Smuda (August 30, 1920 – March 31, 1921). Genevieve Smuda Bennett and Robert J. Bennett worked at Frankford Arsenal with Eva Smuda. Robert was a machine operator and continued working there after the war. Frankford employed 22,000 people during World War II. Eva Smuda made cartridge cases for antiaircraft ammunition. While the caption states she made 50 millimeter rounds, it’s likely she made ammunition for 40 millimeter (1.57 inch) Bofors guns, as the United States did not use 50 millimeter antiaircraft guns during World War II. Technician 5th Class Edwin P. Smuda joined the United States Army on April 1, 1941, and sent an embroidered pillow from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1941. Smuda was sent overseas on September 22, 1942. He was hospitalized in May 1944 when he suffered from phlebitis. He was returned to the United States on December 28, 1944. He completed a 6-day course as a water safety instructor in July 1945 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Smuda was honorably discharged on July 23, 1945, at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania. The photo essay featuring Eva Smuda and her adult children and grandchildren appeared in newspapers across the country in January 1942. Not all newspapers featured the copy accompanying the photos that read: “Americans today are relegating the kind of mother made famous by Whistler to the limbo of fond recollection and are placing in her stead a new kind of American mother, a twenty-four-hour-a-day mother, a mother whose hand guides the future of the nation as capably as that of her own family.” “Eva Smuda is such a mother, representative of hundreds of thousands of women who are working not only for the maintenance of their own homes and families but for the very preservation of American life itself. Six days each week at 0645 Hours. The wrought iron gate leading from the old house on Melrose Street swings open, and Eva Smuda, widowed for fifteen years, starts out for Frankford, Pennsylvania’s huge arsenal. The mother of six grown children, this small, grey-haired woman of fifty-five sits at a machine for eight hours a day, deftly and rapidly tapering fifty millimeter cartridge cases for Uncle Sam’s machine gunners.” “It’s a job that requires as much skill and ingenuity as sewing the fine seam that was once a woman’s prime accomplishment — and it’s a job a million times more important. By the time the 1500 Hours shift at the arsenal comes on, Mrs. Smuda has prepared a formidable present for the Axis partners – thousands of rounds of ammunition destined for America’s distant battlefields. But for this modern mother, the working day is only half gone. Back in the frame house on Melrose Street, there’s housework still to be done, grandchildren to be amused, and the normal routine of family life to be followed. Although many household burdens are shared by the daughter who lives with her, Mrs. Smuda insists on doing some tasks herself. She likes to cook supper for her family and to sweep and dust the familiar objects with which she has lived for so many years. Actually, there is no pressing financial need for Mrs. Smuda to work at the arsenal day after day. Three of her four sons have good jobs and are well able to contribute to her support. But, with Eva Smuda, tapering those cartridge cases is much more than a matter of food to eat and clothes to wear. With her youngest son at camp, she’s got a personalized stake in the future.” “‘America’s going to win this war,’ she says, ‘but not unless all of us old people get behind our young folks and work just as hard for victory as they do.’” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0920.jpg |
| Image Size | 832.77 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2936 x 2356 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Franklin D. Roosevelt Library |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | March 1, 1942 |
| Location | |
| City | Philadelphia |
| State or Province | Pennsylvania |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NLR-PHOCO-A-66312(5) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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