contrast to the latter.
Like Jackson and the other Negroes who worked in the shipyards, Dewittâs primary role was, and always had been, to assist the white employees, first as a maintenance worker then as a bucker. Despite his intelligence and aptitude for the shipbuilding trade, his employers would never train him to rivet or weld, and even if he had somehow managed to acquire those skills elsewhere, they wouldnât have done him much good since, as a Negro man, he was not permitted to take the exam required for promotion.
Moreover, despite his years of devotion and hard work, Dewitt could never earn as much as the other buckers in the yard, since whites and Negroes were paid according to two separate wage scales. Meaning that at the end of a hard week, a female welder with two weeksâ experience often took home a larger paycheck than he did.
Rosie was acutely aware of the yardâs established pecking order. At the top of the social ladder stood white male workers, but even within this group there existed a certain hierarchy. Men of Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and German descent, although comprising the minority of the workforce, formed the shipyard elite. The Irish and Italians occupied the second slot. Sharing a common faith, the two groups had formed an uneasy partnership with each other and, through sheer number, had climbed to a position of relative power within the dockside community. Beneath them, with each group occupying a different rung on the ladder, came the Slavs, Jews, Portuguese, Greeks, Hispanics, and other ethnic groups.
Strangely, or at least it was strange to Rosie, these ethnic groups chose to stand alone rather than unify for the betterment of the whole. Never was there talk of a coalition. Each group was possessive of its spot within the hierarchy and determined to protect itself from those below.
After the men came the women, who were grouped into one of two categories: white or Negro. White women, lumped together regardless of their ethnic or religious background, held a position lower than white males, yet slightly higher than Negro males. Negro women, however, possessed the lowliest status in the yard, below even that of Negro males.
As Del Vecchio finished the remainder of the morningâs announcements, Rosie contemplated her new assignment. Dewitt, although seemingly courteous, was just one of four Negro men working at Pushey, and the only one to have made the transition from maintenance to riveting gang. Kolecky was a Czechoslovakian Jew who socialized with neither group and spoke to no one. Although some had attributed his silence to an inability to speak and understand English, Koleckyâs ability to take instruction from superiors belied that theory. Kilbride was a hard-drinking Irish Nationalist from County Wicklow who came to America shortly after the split of his homeland, in 1921, into northern and southern components. One of the fastest riveters in the yard, the boisterous Kilbrideâs â80 Proofâ lunch incited him to intersperse his afternoon riveting with rebel songs (âA Nation Once Againâ was a popular favorite), limericks, and anti-establishment rhetoric. He was also notorious, at the end of the day, for leaving his tools on the platform rather than signing them back into the toolshedâa habit that had driven Finch to distraction.
As the morning announcements wrapped up and employees began to filter into the yard, Rosie reflected upon her work assignment and immediately recognized why she had been placed with such a ragtag team. Although Del Vecchio might have agreed to put her back on the payroll and even paid public lip service to her return, she was at the very bottom of the Pushey pecking order. And for the riveting gang saddled with the presence of a potential murderer, Rosieâs assignment served to re-establish their low social standing.
âYou sure you know what youâre doing?â Delaney asked.
âNo,â
Like Jackson and the other Negroes who worked in the shipyards, Dewittâs primary role was, and always had been, to assist the white employees, first as a maintenance worker then as a bucker. Despite his intelligence and aptitude for the shipbuilding trade, his employers would never train him to rivet or weld, and even if he had somehow managed to acquire those skills elsewhere, they wouldnât have done him much good since, as a Negro man, he was not permitted to take the exam required for promotion.
Moreover, despite his years of devotion and hard work, Dewitt could never earn as much as the other buckers in the yard, since whites and Negroes were paid according to two separate wage scales. Meaning that at the end of a hard week, a female welder with two weeksâ experience often took home a larger paycheck than he did.
Rosie was acutely aware of the yardâs established pecking order. At the top of the social ladder stood white male workers, but even within this group there existed a certain hierarchy. Men of Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and German descent, although comprising the minority of the workforce, formed the shipyard elite. The Irish and Italians occupied the second slot. Sharing a common faith, the two groups had formed an uneasy partnership with each other and, through sheer number, had climbed to a position of relative power within the dockside community. Beneath them, with each group occupying a different rung on the ladder, came the Slavs, Jews, Portuguese, Greeks, Hispanics, and other ethnic groups.
Strangely, or at least it was strange to Rosie, these ethnic groups chose to stand alone rather than unify for the betterment of the whole. Never was there talk of a coalition. Each group was possessive of its spot within the hierarchy and determined to protect itself from those below.
After the men came the women, who were grouped into one of two categories: white or Negro. White women, lumped together regardless of their ethnic or religious background, held a position lower than white males, yet slightly higher than Negro males. Negro women, however, possessed the lowliest status in the yard, below even that of Negro males.
As Del Vecchio finished the remainder of the morningâs announcements, Rosie contemplated her new assignment. Dewitt, although seemingly courteous, was just one of four Negro men working at Pushey, and the only one to have made the transition from maintenance to riveting gang. Kolecky was a Czechoslovakian Jew who socialized with neither group and spoke to no one. Although some had attributed his silence to an inability to speak and understand English, Koleckyâs ability to take instruction from superiors belied that theory. Kilbride was a hard-drinking Irish Nationalist from County Wicklow who came to America shortly after the split of his homeland, in 1921, into northern and southern components. One of the fastest riveters in the yard, the boisterous Kilbrideâs â80 Proofâ lunch incited him to intersperse his afternoon riveting with rebel songs (âA Nation Once Againâ was a popular favorite), limericks, and anti-establishment rhetoric. He was also notorious, at the end of the day, for leaving his tools on the platform rather than signing them back into the toolshedâa habit that had driven Finch to distraction.
As the morning announcements wrapped up and employees began to filter into the yard, Rosie reflected upon her work assignment and immediately recognized why she had been placed with such a ragtag team. Although Del Vecchio might have agreed to put her back on the payroll and even paid public lip service to her return, she was at the very bottom of the Pushey pecking order. And for the riveting gang saddled with the presence of a potential murderer, Rosieâs assignment served to re-establish their low social standing.
âYou sure you know what youâre doing?â Delaney asked.
âNo,â
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