"Andrew Jackson Higgins of New Orleans"
The following excerpts are taken from an article in Life Magazine from August 1943, describing Higgins' factories in New Orleans during World War II.
(This primary source pairs with the New Orleans Virtual Field Trip which includes a visit to the National World War II Museum.)
When the Allied forces invaded North Africa and Sicily, they depended almost entirely upon fast, specially designed, U.S.-built landing boats and barges to put soldiers, tanks and artillery ashore. When the main Fortress Europe is successfully breached, these craft will spearhead the assault. The man who perhaps has contributed most to their development and construction is Andrew Jackson Higgins of New Orleans, whose fame as a boatbuilder is still hardly matched by his fame as a man of action....
War orders have elevated Higgins from a comparatively small boatbuilder to an industrialist with an annual volume of more than $120,000,000, but he resembles the conventional captain of industry about as much as a Commando resembles a desk sergeant....
Higgins claims to be the world's largest boat manufacturer, which seems open to some qualification, but he certainly comes close to being the world' most important motor-boat manufacturer. All U.S. landing boats and tank lighters, even those built by Higgins' competitors, are made to Higgins' basic designs which he developed before the war. He makes combat, antisub, and PT boats, and is now working on an aircraft contract bigger than the rest of his business taken together, but his most numerous and notable products so far have been landing boats. Some are troop carriers that can land some 30 men dry-shod; others are lighters for transporting tanks, trucks and big guns, equipped with bows that fall and become ramps for the landing vehicles. Higgins is proud of a wire from General Eisenhower last fall: "On this Thanksgiving Day, let us thank God for Higgins Industries' labor and management, which has given us landing boats with which to conduct our North African campaign. More power to you." Last January the U.S. Army gave him an order for 100 shallow draft steel cargo ships nearly 200 ft. long, or about half the length of a 10,000-ton freighter....
Higgins has been turning out his boats on assembly lines. His two main boatbuilding factories, one located near City Park and the other on the Industrial Canal in New Orleans, were erected not with Government but with Higgins money and are homely structures with hardly a square foot of space to spare. But the activity inside them has moved competent judges to high praise. "You are taking your place," said Maritime Commissioner John Carmody in typical tribute, "beside the great production geniuses of modern times."
Higgins' plant layout and production techniques are engineered carefully. He has what he calls a thermometer, or materials control system, for insuring deliver of materials before they begin to run low. These are not so novel, however, as to account for the acclaim he receives. The significant fact about Higgins' operation is that he knows how to get his men to do what he wants them to do.
His workers admire him personally, they hang on his words, and they understand his blunt frankness.... "I bring out the best in them," Higgins has remarked. He persuades his men to contribute lavishly to anything he endorses. When he gave a pay increase of 12.5% in August 1942, he suggested strongly that the increase go into war bonds. The resultant bond subscription, he says, amounted to 15% of the payroll.... Higgins is at least equally effective in getting production out of his men. Signs and posters everywhere reflect the spirit of the plants. "The guy who relaxes," says a common motto, "is helping the Axis."....
Well aware of his hold on his employees, Higgins has rigged up a loudspeaker system so he can discourse to them from his office in the City Park plant as the spirit moves him. When he wants to whip them into a lather of activity for some special job, he appears personally. Testifying before the Truman Committee, he gave a vivid picture of how he does it: "The labor bands get up and play a few stirring pieces, including the Star-Spangled Banner, and somebody gets up and makes a speech. When the tears are running down their eyes, then I have the silver-tongued labor leader tell them what's expected of them. I asked them how they are going to do it and so on, and we get along fine."
In his turn, Higgins has become a distinctly vocal champion of labor rights. He was criticized by many Southern businessmen for attending the "radical" Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Nashville, in April 1941, where he made a short speech on the rights of Negroes. He has said he would hire Negroes at equal pay up to their percentage of population, which is neither an old nor a new Southern custom. Mrs. Roosevelt, who was there, termed him one of the most enlightened of businessmen.... When President Roosevelt made his secret swing around the country last fall, his only New Orleans stop was at Higgins' City Park plant....
Source:
Life Magazine, "Mr. Higgins and His Wonderful Boats," August 1943, pages 100-113. (Accessed through Google Books.)
