As part of our latest update, we wanted to pay special attention to a unique newspaper in our collection, The Powder Keg. With a primary run extending from September 1943 to September 1949, The Powder Keg was the newspaper of record for the Naval Ammunition Depot (NAD) built to the southeast of Hastings, Nebraska during World War II. The NAD was a truly vast undertaking, covering nearly 49,000 acres and at its height employing upwards of 10,000 workers. Nearly 40 percent of the Navy’s ordnance in the Pacific theatre of WWII was produced at this facility. The Powder Keg provides an invaluable insight into the daily lives of these workers providing critical wartime service in what were frequently life threatening conditions.
Published under the auspices of the United States Navy, The Powder Keg featured a handful of civilian editors ostensibly in charge of content, but final say rested solely with the depot’s commanding officer. As noted in the above image, the paper was not viewed as a piece of art; rather it was to be utilitarian, publishing the need-to-know information of the depot’s goings on and above all to be enjoyable to its readership. Very little state or national news made its pages, but what was there was a whole heaping helping of sports and leisure. Life working in a munition’s factory involved long, stressful hours where one mistake could result in ordnance detonating – and detonate it did on more than one occasion (more on that in a moment). Small wonder then that life on the depot was chock full of the lighter things in life: dances, sports, and community centered activities. These comprised the lion’s share of The Powder Keg‘s coverage.
1944 would bear witness to four separate accidents involving exploding ordinance. All told, 21 workers lost their lives, with dozens more injured. The largest of these explosions was felt in Lincoln over 100 miles away and caused damage to buildings throughout the Hastings area. No wonder then that so much of NAD messaging was centered around the absolute need for care and safety in the workplace. The Powder Keg regularly featured praise for individuals who went above and beyond in matters of safety, and was quite scathing when workers’ were determined to be negligent. Where possible, the editors attempted to find the humor in the deadly serious work.
I would like to take a moment here to provide some insight into the process of making these papers available for the public. Specifically, the title essays, and the exciting (and not infrequently upsetting) paths we find ourselves exploring. The National Digital Newspaper Program requirements call for a title essay to accompany each newspaper that we digitize for the purpose of providing a brief history and context of the publication. It’s only 500 words, but we take them very seriously. The digitization process necessitates going through numerous rolls of microfilm for each title, noting down metadata for every single page available. It’s a bit like speed reading decades of daily news. It’s a lot of material on its own, and yet it’s still not enough to merely consider the content of the paper itself. We go to great pains to consult outside sources, whether local histories, books, or contemporary newspapers. It allows for drawing a more robust picture that centers the newspaper in its specific moment and place. But again, it’s just 500 words, and so that means there’s a lot of very interesting material that has to be left unsaid. This was what, to me, made The Powder Keg such a unique experience amongst this latest cycle of newspapers.
I grew up about an hour and a half from Hastings, but I had never heard of the NAD before this project. Sometimes finding outside sources for newspapers from long ago with potentially niche readerships can prove challenging and I expected as much with The Powder Keg. An expectation I was glad to see dispelled. There is an entire corpus of literature on the topic, including Walter L. Miller’s invaluable book, U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot and numerous informative videos accessible to the public. One such video was produced by Central Community College, located today on land that formerly comprised a small portion of the NAD.
The construction of the NAD brought both great opportunity and unlooked for difficulty to Hastings and the surrounding area. The vast footprint of the facility necessitated the buyout of dozens of area farmers, a process that frequently proved contentious. Staffing the depot also would call for far more workers than Hastings could ever hope to provide, leading to a massive influx of new residents as people came from far and wide for steady, good paying jobs.
As one might expect, this sudden surge in population caused all manner of difficulty for the city in providing essentials like housing and infrastructure. The new arrivals and established families of the area made for an occasionally combustible mix. Further, as a naval facility, the NAD was home to a contingent of U.S. Navy sailors. As the Navy was still a segregated institution at the time, Black sailors were prohibited from serving aboard ships and were instead assigned to facilities like the NAD. Tensions between these sailors and the homogenous populace of Hastings would prove persistent, with the eventual result that sailors looking for R&R would be bussed all the way to Omaha on weekends rather than mingling with the local population.
This interesting piece done by Nebraska Public Media features the experiences of Willie Tripp, a Black sailor stationed at the NAD and is an illuminating look at some of these issues:
https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/media/embed/40166623
The story of Willie Tripp is reflective of the tensions surrounding the NAD. But does this tension present itself within the pages of The Powder Keg? Yes and no. Read enough of it and the lines of segregation in the facility’s social scene come through clearly. But then there are images like this integrated baseball team that provide just a bit of hope.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our newly digitized newspapers and take some time to explore the papers for yourself. Wrapping up our update, just a reminder that we have a couple newspapers that we’ve written about previously, and one which we’re hoping to see more of in the future.
The Beatrice Daily Express and The Woman’s Tribune
Back in March, in commemoration of Women’s History month, we blogged about our two suffrage papers, The Beatrice Daily Express and The Woman’s Tribune. The former covered daily life in Beatrice, Nebraska, as well as espousing a pro-suffrage stance. The latter was a nationally renowned suffrage paper, started right here in Nebraska. Please read the previous post for information about those two important papers.
South Omaha Stockman
We had just begun digitization of The South Omaha Stockman when we found out that our latest grant was cut. The South Omaha Stockman began publishing June 12, 1886, from the recently erected Exchange Building at the South Omaha Stockyards. The Stockman was a 4-column, 4-page publication which sold for $5 per year. The lead story daily was the market report, covering cattle, hogs, and sheep, with sales and price totals. Other markets such as Chicago, Sioux City, and Kansas City were covered. Each issue also featured visits of regional stockmen, “Plattsmouth was represented by E. W. Black and O. Ramge with five loads of cattle.” (March 6, 1889)
We hope to be able to digitize more of this important paper in the years to come.