#roy schiffer pinney

[hagleyvault]

This #WorkerWednesday, we’re taking a stroll in the Morris Park maintenance facility of the Long Island Railroad in Queens, New York City. We’re joined by ten of the twenty-eight women employed as engine cleaners there at the time this photograph was taken (between 1941 and 1945).

This moment in time was captured by photographer Roy Schiffer Pinney (1911-2010). A note on the reverse of image remarks that the women were photographed “at the close of the day, returning to their locker room at the Morris Park yards near Jamaica. Grimy and tired, they are happy in the knowledge that they have done a mans job well in the wartime emergency.”

This image is part of the Hagley Library’s collection of Chamber of Commerce of the United States photographs and audiovisual materials, Series II. Nation's Business photographs (Accession 1993.230.II). You can view more material from this collection online now in our Digital Archive by clicking here.