Untold Story of Women Who Made Gibson’s “Banner” Guitars During WW2

It all started with the above photograph from 1944. Author John Thomas, a law professor and musician, in the preface to his book Kalamazoo Gals: A Story of Extraordinary Women & Gibson’s “Banner” Guitars of WWII, writes : “I can no longer recall just how I stumbled upon this photograph. But I do know that it haunted me for some years. I printed it out, pinned it up on the cork board on my office wall, and found my attention drawn to it more often than I care to admit”

And so the journey began to find out who these girls were, posing in front of Gibson Guitar’s Kalamazoo, MI, factory. And what of the “banner” guitars? I met up with Thomas at Brooklyn’s Retrofret Guitars.
Read the story and listen to interview and music clips at www.guitarkadia.com. Original publication 2013.
