Moving the US to a war footing before and during the Second World War was probably the largest industrial shift in American history. In rural Wisconsin, the largest munition factory in the world sprung up as if out of nowhere, just one of many military facilities the size of cities built to help meet the needs of a global war.
The appeal of one strange object, which achieved dizzying popularity in my lifetime, and today lives on mostly for nostalgia, is not so difficult to explain. All you need to do is turn one on and wait.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.