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Charles P. McWane Henry E. McWane
Lawrence H. McWane
A FAMILY LEGACY
Lucille McWane
growing company needed better communications and that a “house organ” would be the best way to achieve that goal. He might have been prompted, too, by outside efforts to unionize his workforce. The first issue included the president’s “Ap- preciation” to employees for their refusal to be influenced by union organizers.
Lawrence McWane hired his younger sister Lucille to edit the new publication. Lucille had grown up in a home where the family business was the daily topic of dinner conversa- tion. Steeped in the Foundry’s history, politics, and industrial developments, she was a natural choice for the job—except for her sex. Lucille insisted that her identity be kept a secret because, as she noted fifty years later, “a foundry... was strictly a man’s world, and to have announced that the
new publication for foundrymen was to be produced by a female wouldn’t have helped its cause one bit.” She was not put on the Foundry payroll; Lawrence paid her per issue
out of his personal funds.
Lucille McWane was born in 1893, the sixth of eleven children, to Henry Edward and Blanche Roberts Mc- Wane. She graduated from Lynchburg High School and continued her education at the the prestigious Bristol School in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Bristol in 1916, she volunteered with the Red Cross Canteen Service in Lynchburg and was soon made com- mandant. The efficiencies that she introduced greatly enhanced the ability of the canteen to supply meals to traveling soldiers, so much so that Lynchburg became known, for a time, as Lunchburg. She was promoted
to an overseas assignment but the armistice intervened. She then worked briefly for the YWCA Hostess
House at Camp Humphries, Virginia, before being re- cruited by her brother to edit the company publication.
Early Editions
The inaugural December 1919 issue of the Iron Worker, like most that followed, contained articles one would expect of a house organ. The magazine addressed changes in the physi- cal plant, the introduction of new techniques and products, safety concerns, new members of management, and industry
The Iron Worker highlighted the contributions of the Foundry’s employees—above, the company band, and at left, the author’s great uncle E. M. Wright.
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