June 2026 Meeting Summary
At our dinner meeting on June 17th Round Table member Dick Titterington gave an excellent presentation titled “Gunpowder Girls.” Attendance at the meeting was 45. Dick’s presentation was inspired by the book, Gunpowder Girls, The True Stories of Three Civil War Tragedies by Tanya Anderson.
In her book Ms. Anderson wrote: “[Young women] came from around the world to live the American dream. They, along with hundreds of other poor girls and women, found work in the arsenals making small-arms cartridges. They toiled up to 72 hours a week making sure that the armies of the North and South never ran out of bullets. They worked in unsafe conditions with little training. If just one person at the arsenal wasn’t careful, something terrible might happen ….”
Dick said this is the story of the sacrifices that women made during the Civil War. Why did women do this job? Originally boys were used to manufacture cartridges. However, they were replaced with women at one arsenal after matches were found on three separate occasions.
The women were paid based on piece work and made less than $20 per month. One woman made only $17.28 for producing 96,000 cartridges.
Dick talked about the manufacturing of paper cartridges, percussion caps, and friction primers (used for artillery). He discussed the tragic events that occurred at the following arsenals:
- Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville PA.
- Richmond Arsenal in Richmond VA.
- Washington Arsenal in Washington D.C.
On September 17, 1862, the Allegheny Arsenal exploded. Sparks from a horse’s hoof striking a stone, ignited spilled gunpowder that had been swept into the street. A total of 78 women and girls were killed. The youngest was only 10 years old.
On March 13, 1863, the Richmond Arsenal exploded when Mary Ryan was trying to remove friction primers stuck to a board. She banged the board against the table, which caused the one of the primers to ignite, resulting in a massive explosion. A total of 45 people died, many due to horrible burns.
On June 17, 1864, the laboratory building at the Washington Arsenal exploded. Fireworks called “stars” were being manufactured on the grounds outside of the building. Spontaneous combustion of the stars baking in the hot sun caused some of the stars to enter the laboratory through an open window and ignite paper cartridges. The explosion killed a total of 21 women.
In conclusion, Tanya Anderson wrote: “At arsenals in the North and South, girls and women continued to produce the ammunition soldiers needed to keep fighting.
Nothing much changed in those months. The job was still dangerous. The girls still needed to work. No one was ever held responsible in any real way for the deaths of all those workers in Lawrenceville, Richmond, and Washington.”
Photographs from the June Dinner Meeting
