When the United States entered World War II, the railroads became the backbone of the entire war effort. Between 1942 and 1944, trains carried over 90% of all military freight and 98% of all military personnel. In 1944 alone — the peak year of the war — more than 75% of all commercial passengers traveled by rail. The number of passenger miles exploded from 23,816 million to 95,663 million over the course of the war. Nothing moved America like the railroad, and keeping it moving fell, in large part, to women.
By the end of World War II, approximately 116,000 women were working on railroads across the country. They ranged from 16-year-old messengers to experienced 55-year-old railroaders. Before the war, most railroad companies refused to hire women at all. By the middle of the conflict, those same companies were adding women as fast as they could find them. The work was physical, demanding, and often dirty — and women did it without hesitation.
One of the most detailed records of this workforce comes from Clinton, Iowa. In April 1943, Office of War Information photographer Jack Delano traveled to the Chicago & North Western Railroad roundhouse in Clinton to document the women keeping the engines running. What he captured was a cross-section of working-class American women — many of them mothers — doing jobs that had never before been considered women’s work.
At the roundhouse, wipers were responsible for cleaning, lubricating, and maintaining the locomotives. It was gritty, hands-on work that kept the engines in operating condition. Mrs. Irene Bracker, a mother of two, was one of those wipers.
Other women took on roles that required technical training. Cloe Weaver, a mother of four, worked as a roundhouse helper and was learning to operate the turntable — the massive rotating platform used to redirect locomotives in the roundhouse.
The locomotives themselves required constant cleaning. Teams of wipers worked directly on the engines, scrubbing the large H-class locomotives that pulled freight and passengers across the country.
Not all roles involved working directly on the engines. Mrs. Elibia Siematter worked as a sweeper at the roundhouse, keeping the facility itself clean and operational — a job just as essential to the smooth running of the site as any mechanical role.
Mrs. Marcella Hart, a mother of three, was another wiper at the Clinton roundhouse. Like her colleagues, she balanced the demands of her home life with long shifts doing heavy industrial work.
Wiping down a locomotive was a two-person job. Mrs. Marcella Hart and Mrs. Viola Sievers worked together on one of the H-class engines, scrubbing its surfaces clean.
Sand played a surprisingly important role in railroad operations. It was fed onto the tracks in front of locomotive wheels to improve traction, especially on wet or slippery rails. Mrs. Thelma Cuvage was responsible for sifting and cleaning the sand before it could be used — a precise task that directly affected whether a train could keep moving.
The work was relentless, but the women at the Clinton roundhouse still found moments of rest during their shifts. Mrs. Elibia Siematter paused for her lunch break, as did the broader crew of roundhouse workers.
Back on the job, the cleaning of the heavy H-class locomotives continued. These engines required frequent attention to stay in working order, and the wipers returned to them again and again throughout each shift.
Steam was another key tool in the cleaning process. Mrs. Viola Sievers used a steam hose to blast grime and grease from the surface of an H-class locomotive — a job that required both physical strength and care to avoid burns.
Mrs. Dorothy Lucke was another wiper documented by Delano at the roundhouse. Her presence, like that of her colleagues, reflected a broader national shift in who was considered capable of doing industrial railroad work.
The 44 million troops transported by rail between 1941 and 1945 moved because the locomotives kept running. Behind every engine that left a roundhouse was a crew of workers — many of them women like those in Clinton, Iowa — who cleaned, lubricated, repaired, and prepared it for the next run. Jack Delano’s photographs preserve a record of their labor at a moment when the demands placed on American railroads were greater than at any point in history.
