War Industries Board Explained

Agency Name:	War Industries Board
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Dissolved:	January 1, 1919
Headquarters:	Washington D.C.
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The War Industries Board (WIB) was a United States government agency established on July 28, 1917, during World War I, to coordinate the purchase of war supplies between the War Department (Department of the Army) and the Navy Department.^[1] Because the United States Department of Defense (The Pentagon) would only come into existence in 1947, this was an ad hoc construction to promote cooperation between the Army and the Navy (with regard to procurement), it was founded by the Council of National Defense (which on its turn came into existence by the appropriation bill of August 1916). The War Industries Board was preceded by the General Munitions Board —which didn't have the authority it needed and was later strengthened and transformed into the WIB.^[2]

The board was led initially by Frank A. Scott, who had previously been head of the General Munitions Board. He was replaced in November by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad president Daniel Willard. Finally, in January 1918, the board was reorganized under the leadership of financier Bernard M. Baruch.

The organization encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques to increase efficiency and urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing products. The board set production quotas and allocated raw materials. It also conducted psychological testing to help people find the right jobs.

The WIB dealt with labor-management disputes resulting from increased product demand during World War I. The government could not negotiate prices or handle worker strikes, so the War Industries Board regulated the two to decrease tensions by stopping strikes with wage increases to prevent a shortage of supplies going to the war in Europe.

Under the War Industries Board, industrial production in the U.S. increased 20 percent. However, the vast majority of the war material was produced too late to do any good.^[3] The War Industries Board was decommissioned by an executive order on January 1, 1919.

With the war mobilization conducted under the supervision of the War Industries Board, unprecedented fortunes fell upon war producers and certain holders of raw materials and patents. Hearings in 1934 by the Nye Committee led by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye were intended to hold war profiteers to account.

Despite its relatively brief existence, the WIB was a major step in the development of national planning and government-business cooperation in the United States, and its precedents —like the National Recovery Administration— were influential during the New Deal and World War II.^[4]

Members of the War Industries Board

The original seven members of the War Industries Board were:^[5]

• Frank A. Scott (1873–1949), chairman
• Bernard M. Baruch
• Robert S. Brookings, head of the Cupples Co., a distribution firm
• Robert S. Lovett, President of Union Pacific Railroad
• Hugh Frayne, of the American Federation of Labor and former president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO
• Army Brigadier General Palmer E. Pierce
• Admiral Frank F. Fletcher

Other later members included:^{[6] [7] [8]}

• Major General James B. Aleshire, Army member of the priorities committee
• Chandler P. Anderson, special counsel on international affairs
• George Newell Armsby, member of the priorities committee
• Captain Clarence Bamberger, assistant chief of forgings, guns, etc., section^[9]
• Ollie Josephine Prescott Baird Bennett^[10]
• Robert J. Bulkley, chief of legal section
• Samuel P. Bush, chief of ordnance (small arms, ammunition)
• Anthony Caminetti, member of war prison labor and national waste reclamation section
• March F. Chase (1876–1935), director of explosives division
• William L. Clayton, member of cotton distribution committee
• John Lee Coulter, staff expert, division of planning and statistics
• William Byron Colver, member of the price fixing committee^[11]
• Charles H. Conner, chief of platinum section, wood chemical section and gold and silver section
• Clarence Dillon, partner in Dillon, Read & Co.
• Charles Edgar (1862–1922), director of lumber
• Colonel George Henson Estes, Army representative, requirements division
• Felix Frankfurter, Labor Department representative on priorities board
• Harry Augustus Garfield, member of the price fixing committee
• Edwin Francis Gay, chairman, planning and statistics division^[12]
• Army General George Washington Goethals (became a member in 1918)
• Joseph F. Guffey, chief of petroleum section
• Commander John Milton Hancock, Navy member of the price fixing committee
• Charles P. Howland, member of the priorities committee
• Brigadier General Hugh S. Johnson^[13]
• Colonel Charles Keller, joint national power administrator
• Henry Krumb, member of the priorities committee
• Alexander Legge, selected by President Woodrow Wilson as vice chairman after the reorganization in March 1918
• Charles Kenneth Leith, chief of mica section and mineral import-export advisor^[14]
• Isador Lubin, staff expert, division of planning and statistics
• Charles H. MacDowell (1867–1954), director of chemical division
• Rear Admiral Newton E. Mason, Navy member of the priorities committee^[15]
• Joseph A. McDonald, staff expert, steel division
• Rear Admiral Samuel McGowan, Navy representative, conservation division
• Eugene Meyer, Special Advisor to the War Industries Board on Non-Ferrous Metals
• Wesley Clair Mitchell, chief of price statistics
• Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hiester Montgomery, Army member of the price fixing committee
• P. B. Noyes, Fuel Administration representative on requirements division and priorities board
• Edwin B. Parker, head of priorities division^[16]
• George N. Peek, commissioner of finished products
• Charles Piez, Emergency Fleet Corporation representative on priorities board
• Thomas C. Powell, manager of inland traffic and member of the priorities committee^{[17] [18]}
• J. Leonard Replogle, director of steel supply
• Albert C. Ritchie, general counsel
• Adolph G. Rosengarten (1870–1946), chief of miscellaneous chemical section
• Arch Wilkinson Shaw, head of conservation division
• Edward Stettinius Sr., partner in J.P. Morgan & Co.
• Walter W. Stewart, staff member, division of planning and statistics
• George Cameron Stone, head of Non-Ferrous Metal section
• Henry Carter Stuart, member of the price fixing committee
• Leland L. Summers, technical advisor and chair of Foreign Mission
• Frank William Taussig, member of the price fixing committee
• Samuel M. Vauclain, chairman, special advisory subcommittee on plants and munitions
• Edward R. Weidlein, technical advisor, chemical division
• Louis S. Weiss, member of legal section
• Theodore Whitmarsh
• Harrison Williams, member of facilities division
• Major Seth Williams, Marine Corps Representative to the Board (Requirements Division); Future Quartermaster of the Marine Corps in 1937-1944.^{[19] [20]}
• Leo Wolman, staff member, division of planning and statistics
• Pope Yeatman, head, non-ferrous metals division^[21]

Further reading

• Clarkson, Grosvenor. Industrial America in the World War, (1923,)
• Cuff, Robert D. The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations During World War I, Johns Hopkins University Press, (1973,)
• Gilbert, James B. Designing the Industrial State, (1972,)

External links

• Records of the WIB at the National Archives

Notes and References

1. News: War Purchase Board of Three proposed . July 11, 1917 . The New York Times.
2. Risch, Erna (1989). Quartermaster Support of the Army: a history of the Corps, 1775-1939. Washington, DC. Center of Military History, United States Army. p.604.
3. Herman, Arthur. Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, pp. 12-16, 77, Random House, New York, NY, 2012. .
4. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_industries_board war industries board
5. Baruch, B. (1941). American Industry in the War: A Report of the War Industries Board. New York: Prentice-Hall, p.22.
6. Baruch, B. (1941). American Industry in the War: A Report of the War Industries Board. New York: Prentice-Hall, p.27.
7. Book: Members of the War Industries Board Organization . 1919 . Government Printing Office . Washington, D.C..
8. Book: Haynes, Williams . https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.20066/page/n456/mode/1up . Appendix X: The War Industries Board . American Chemical Industry: The World War I Period: 1912–1922 . Williams Haynes . 1945 . II . 352–354 . D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc. . New York, New York.
9. News: Clarence Bamberger, Utah Financier, Dies . 1984-02-19 . The Salt Lake Tribune . 23 . . 2024-01-28.
10. Book: Bellafaire, Judith. Women Doctors in War. Texas A&M University Press. 2009. 978-1-60344-146-9. College Station, TX. 55.
11. News: William B. Colver, 56, Dies in Washington . 1926-05-29 . . 18 . . 2024-01-12.
12. News: Dr. Edwin F. Gay, Economist and War Aide, Dies . 1946-02-09 . . 1 . . 2024-01-16.
13. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/05/18/98264774.pdf "Appoint Committee on Steel Situation." New York Times. May 18, 1918
14. News: Dr. Leith, Retired UW Prof, Dies . Kenosha Evening News . September 14, 1956 . 22 . . January 29, 2024.
15. https://archive.org/stream/navyordnanceact00ordngoog/navyordnanceact00ordngoog_djvu.txt Navy Ordnance Activities, World War I, 1917–1918, p. 29.
16. Book: Cuff, Robert D. . The War Industries Board: Business–Government Relations During World War I . The Johns Hopkins University Press . 1973 . 120 . . 2024-01-13.
17. News: Thomas C. Powell, Retired Railway President Dies . 1945-02-10 . Courier-News . 6 . . 2024-01-28.
18. News: Death Comes to Railway Official . 1945-02-11 . The Cincinnati Enquirer . 16 . . 2024-01-28.
19. Web site:
    1. 110 Major General Seth Williams, Class of 1903, Helped Shape the Modern Marine Corps
    . Norwich University. August 31, 2018.
20. Baruch, B. (1941). American Industry in the War: A Report of the War Industries Board. New York: Prentice-Hall, p.292.
21. News: Pope Yeatman, Engineer, Dies . 1953-12-06 . . B21 . . 2024-01-16.