Badger Meter Manufacturing Company During World War Two
Milwaukee, WI
1905-Current

This page added 11-25-2024.

In March 1905, the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company was created to manufacture a new type of residential water meter.  The cold winters in Wisconsin resulted in other residential water meters freezing and ruining the internal mechanical components.  The Badger Meter Manufacturing Company produced a residential water meter with a bottom plate that would rupture when the device froze.  This saved the internal mechanism and only the bottom plate needed to be replaced.

Currently, the company is still in business and still produces several different types of water meters, related software, pressure and leak monitoring equipment, and water quality measuring devices. 

The Badger Meter Manufacturing Company won the Army-Navy "E" Award four times during World War Two.
It won the award on May 22, 1943, February 19, 1944, September 9, 1944, and March 10, 1945.

Badger Meter Manufacturing Company's World War Two Products:  Table 1 shows that the company had $24,235,000 in major contracts with U.S. Army Ordnance for bomb fuzes. 

All Out for War, All Set for Peace:  Below is a 68-page booklet that the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company published in 1945.  This booklet gives us a view back into the company and the manufacturing processes associated with the manufacture of bomb fuzes.  It is a time capsule of a time when American industry converted to war production, how the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company met the challenge, and was awarded the Army-Navy "E" Award four times for producing bomb fuzes ahead of schedule.

The first item the company addresses, even before the title page, are the dates the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company won its "E" awards. 

The next four pages give the background on how the company became involved with the manufacture of bomb fuzes.  It was written by a staff member of the Milwaukee Journal and may well have been published by the newspaper.

Next is the "All Out for War" section of the booklet. 

This section shows the various processes associated with the manufacture of bomb fuzes.  It may well be the only publication of its type that does this.  It allows us to look back 80 years ago to see how the fuzes were made.  This is an important time capsule showing how bomb fuzes were manufactured.  It shows the various parts of the fuzes and the tooling with which they were made.

Note a common occurrence of World War Two era manufacturing.  No safety glasses. 

Another feature of World War Two era manufacturing is that most of the assembly work is being performed by women of all age groups.  This was common during the period.  The men who worked were older, as all of the young men from the company were serving in the armed forces.  While aircraft plants and ship yards are best known for their "Rosie the Riveters," this booklet shows that women were prevalent in many different industries. 

The company employed five hundred persons during the war, most of them women, as will be shown below.

With the exception of the three male supervisors, the twenty plus operators on the conveyor belt are women. 

The women operators of these machines are wearing caps to keep their hair from getting tangled in the machines.  However, they are not wearing safety glasses. 

Winning of the Army-Navy "E" Award was important to any company that won it for meeting or exceeding production schedules.  The Badger Meter Manufacturing Company has featured its letters of notification for winning the award and letters of congratulations on the next three pages. 

Next is the "All Set for Peace" section of the booklet.  The war would end, and not only the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company, but all of the other companies in the country were planning ahead for normal times when the war would be over.