University of Virginia Library

Scrap Metals

Metal was second on the list of materials which the Federal government
desired to recover through salvage. The United States had
lived to regret its policy during the 1930's which had encouraged
the Japanese to buy American scrap iron for their war machine. In
December, 1941, American rearmament necessitated a hunt for scrap
metal; but it was in February of 1942, when thirty-nine blast furnaces
of the steel industries in the nation were compelled to shut
down due to a lack of scrap, that collecting metal became imperative.
The knowledge that twenty-five per cent of the metal used in the
manufacture of essential steel was scrap iron gave meaning to the
Salvage for Victory Program launched in March of 1942.[13]

Residents of the community were asked to search their garrets for
worn out household metals of all kinds, including everything except
tin cans and razor blades, the first then being considered non-reclaimable,
the second, too hazardous to handle. City junk dealers were
to ship the scrap through channels established by the War Production
Board to plants where its weight, however depleted in the process
of melting, would compensate in some measure for the shortage
at the steel mills. Heavy iron sold for fifty cents per hundred
pounds, less heavy iron for forty cents, light iron, fifteen cents and
upwards, making an average of about thirty-five cents per hundred

pounds. Copper and brass sold for from three to five cents per
pound.

One dealer shipped 186 tons of scrap metals collected through the
efforts of the United States Department of Agriculture War Board in
Albemarle County and the County Board of Agriculture between
January and May, 1942. Their work was independent of that
carried out by the county Salvage Committee, which reported having
sent to two of the local dealers 646 tons of iron and twelve and a
half tons of brass and copper. The city and county collections for
June totaled 168 tons.[14]

In preparation for the local July drive the local Salvage Committees
designated four conveniently located places for the reception
of scrap, called to public attention by spot announcements over
radio station WCHV: the Texaco Service Station at 14th and Main
Streets, Whiting Oil Station, East End Parking Lot, and the Gulf
Service Station at Farmington Crossing. City refuse trucks offered
“curb service,” making their rounds once a week during the month's
drive to pick up piles of scrap deposited on the curb in front of people's
houses. Over 144 tons of scrap iron and steel were collected
in July.[15]

Old tracks of the Southern Railway Company were torn up at
Preston Turning, and the metal was shipped for salvage late in the
summer. Henry H. Hill, owner of the Hill Wrecking Company of
Charlottesville, received an automobile “graveyard” banner from the
War Production Board, the first such award in Virginia. Between
June 25 and September 15, 1942, he directed over 600 tons of scrap
to the mills for war production. He further accomplished a complete
turnover of scrap every sixty days. Total collection for the
city during the month of August was 292.5 tons, whereas the
county had salvaged 1,800 tons in all from January to September
24, 1942.[16]

Early in September Donald Nelson called on all newspaper publishers
to attend a meeting in Washington at which Army and Navy
officials were present. The publishers were informed that a supply
of scrap adequate for only two weeks was available, and that unless
the collection was greatly increased it would mean that many mills
and furnaces would be forced to shut down, thereby seriously reducing
the amount of ammunition and equipment needed for the
armed forces. The publishers were asked to call the attention of the
nation to this alarming state of affairs. Soon after the meeting the
Virginia Newspapers' Scrap Campaign, sponsored by the Virginia
Press Association, was launched as part of a national drive from
September 21 through October 10. Governor Darden extended
Junk Rally Week, originally the first week in September, to a three-week
period, Junk Rally Weeks, to correspond with this period.[17]

The Daily Progress opened the drive for Charlottesville with a
full-page advertisement titled “Virginia's Scrap Can Lick the Jap.”
War bond prizes amounting to $4,000 were offered for the best
contributions made by the county, city, agricultural organizations,
women's, men's, and children's groups, churches, school organizations,
business firms, and individuals in collecting scrap or giving information
as to where hidden quantities of metal could be procured.
More depots for collection were assigned, including the fire station
and Haynes Settle's service station in the Fry's Spring area.[18]

City activities included the distribution of lists of the names and
locations of scrap depots along with gas and water bills, and again
the services of the city trucks were enlisted. Old gas fixtures were
taken from houses which antedated electric wiring. Some 300 tons
of street car rails buried under the asphalt pavement of West Main
Street from the University to the Union Station were removed by
the Works Progress Administration. The difficult job of disinterment
proved to be too expensive in relation to the sale price of the
recovered metal at junk yards, so it was discontinued at a point less
than half of the distance to the announced goal at the Chesapeake
and Ohio Railway Station. Another activity was a two-day contest
between residents of the two sides of Main Street; the four tons
gathered by the South side bested the three tons gathered by the
North side. Civic clubs, too, joined in the drive, outstanding among
them being the Kiwanians, who contributed forty tons of scrap collected
on their lot back of the Whiting Service Station at Fifth and
West Main Streets. The proceeds went to the club's crippled children's
fund. The Paramount Theatre received five tons of scrap
from the special production of “Ride 'em Cowboy” when the price
of admission was three pounds of metal. A week's campaign at the
University, directed by Frank E. Hartman, Superintendent of
Grounds, and joined in by the students netted about ten tons of scrap
and 500 pounds of brass. This was piled in a roped-off area in
front of the new Naval R. O. T. C. building, Maury Hall.[19]

Each school in the city took part in the scrap drive. The Lane
High School Student Council, whose goal was one hundred tons,
was assisted by the Lions Club, which succeeded in obtaining the
loan of twenty-five delivery trucks from business firms to haul scrap.
This group collected 158 tons and won a $100 war bond in the
State Newspaper Contest. The new Jefferson High School brought
in twenty tons. Junior Commando scrap collectors of Clark School
gathered seven tons, reaching a higher average per capita than that
later attained by the city. Venable School gathered three tons. The
McGuffey School had a one-day drive to which every child responded;
and the “G. B.” Club made up of boys and girls from six to

twelve years old, mostly from McGuffey School, raised $9.53 from
its sales toward the purchase of a bond.[20]

By September 30 the firemen had a motley assortment of museum
pieces totaling over twelve tons. There were old iron kettles, such
as swung from cranes over the open hearth; a French, a German, and
an American helmet from World War I; a pre-Civil War tobacco
press; an old Plymouth; a discarded Nash; an antique tricycle; the
complete equipment of a former Charlottesville business donated by
Mrs. A. R. Michtom; and a 600-pound chunk of iron rescued from
a creek bed. From the Old Ladies' Home came the entire iron fence
which had encircled their property. An unbattered Confederate
cannon was the gift of Miss Mary Perley. Though never used in the
Civil War, it had been fired on the University Lawn when South
Carolina seceded from the Union, April 17, 1861, by its owner, C.
C. Wertenbaker, and again later to commemorate Virginia's secession.
The American Legion also contributed a cannon, but the Confederate
cannon on the lawn of the Court House, eyed by enthusiastic
salvagers, did not join the scrap pile. A sign set up by the firemen
read: “The Japs Got All They Could Pay For—Now Let's Give
Them the Rest.”[21]

The fascination of the scrap pile led to at least two instances of
theft. Three helmets, American, French, and German, were stolen
one night from the firemen's collection, and a piece of brass worth
$5.00 was taken from the Henry Hill Junk Yard.[22]

In the county a Scrap Harvest Drive led by Larned Randolph was
being conducted at the same time. Fourteen representatives from
sections of the county had organized after September 25 and obtained
the use of state highway trucks furnished by R. C. Ambler,
county resident engineer, for the transportation of scrap to the
dealers in Charlottesville. Ed Bain and Linden Shroyer, aided by four
teams from the Crozet Fire Department, made a house-to-house
canvass, and the proceeds were divided between the final payment
for a new aircraft observation post and a gift to the U. S. O. Stephen
Kelsey directed the drive for Ivy, Grover Van Devender for Owensville,
and John Faris for Red Hill, where school boys helped locate
and haul scrap in their local drive.[23]

The potentialities of industrial salvage were evident when John
S. Graves of the Alberene Stone Corporation at Schuyler reported
that nine carloads of scrap, aggregating about 450 tons and representing
a fifty-year accumulation of worn-out machinery, cars, rails,
and other articles of iron, were sent to the nation's scrap heap.
Frank Ix and Sons, Inc., gave twenty-four and one half tons and the
Southern Welding and Machine Company three and one half tons.[24]

The 500-ton goal for city and county collections was not only
reached but exceeded at the end of the three-week drive. C. D. Searson,
county drive statistician, announced on October 17 that the

collections since August had been about 801.5 tons. Charlottesville
alone had collected 443 tons, representing an average of 45.7 pounds
per capita. With a population of 380 people Scottsville had raised over
fifty tons, equivalent to a per capita average of 266.6 pounds. This
figure compared very favorably with the goal of 100 pounds per capita
which had been set for every locality in the state. Moreover, it
rivalled the 286.3 pounds per capita recorded in Lynchburg, which
led all Virginia communities. The Reverend Oscar E. Northen and
E. B. Meredith, together with Homer Thacker, were leaders responsible
for Scottsville's remarkable record. The Keswick and Proffit
areas were among sections of the community in which heavy rains
prevented the completion of the drive within the allotted period.
First place for individual entrants was won by F. F. Critzer of Ivy,
whose total was 11,146 pounds; S. J. Robinson, Jr., of Charlottesville
was second with 7,226 pounds.[25]

These local results constituted a helpful minority of the nation's
total collections of more than 6,000,000 tons of scrap metals which
were brought into war production as a result of the three-week campaign
led by American newspapers.

At the close of 1942, owing to the heavy toll of ships sunk and
material abandoned on battlefields in the course of the Pacific campaigns
and the North African invasion, the scrap situation remained
critical. Industries were asked to pledge themselves to continue the
salvage of metal until the war's end. A local Industrial Salvage
Committee began functioning in November, 1942. It worked with
manufacturers, garages, and other business firms in which larger
amounts of scrap metal were usually found. One of the specific
duties of this group, of which Frank Ix, Jr., was chairman, was to
follow up on the disposal of recurrent scrap and to forward monthly
reports on sales of scrap to the War Production Board. At the end
of the second quarter after its organization the committee reported
300,000 pounds more scrap than during its first quarter. By April,
1944, it had reported well over a million pounds of various kinds of
scrap. “We have found industries in Charlottesville most cooperative,
and we are confident that they will continue in their splendid
work,” wrote Alex F. Ryland of Richmond, district industrial salvage
representative. Over a period of six months the Southern
Welding and Machine Company salvaged 721,000 pounds of iron
and steel and 64,000 pounds of brass.[26]

During the first six months of 1943 the national quota was
13,000,000 tons, over fifty per cent of this amount to be supplied
by industries and farms. All Charlottesville industries participated
throughout 1943. The quota for Virginia's farm scrap was 87,000
tons, to be collected not later than June 30. The Home Demonstration
Clubs in Albemarle County collected 39,448 pounds of iron
and steel during the first half of the year. The Home Demonstration

and 4-H Clubs jointly collected 36,764 pounds of scrap in 1944
and 20,314 pounds in 1945.[27]