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Originally Posted by jt1
Thank you for posting this.
I was, unfortunately, involved. Gibson guitar company reached out to me. The company asked for permission to use the classic Kalamazoo Gals photo of women guitar makers standing in front of the Gibson factory in 1944. "Sure," I naively responded. "But you need to credit the Gals and me and link to my site and the Kalamazoo Gals book site." A Gibson minion responded, "Of course! And we'll send you the link to the video when we post it." The minion did not send me the link. I Googled and found it. No reference to the Kalamazoo Gals. The speaker in the video, a Gibson VP to whom I gave a copy of my book said, "The history books call them the Gibson Gals." The history books don't address the issue because Gibson covered it up. No links. No reference to the Kalamazoo Gals except a tiny credit to me at the end of the video: "Kalamazoo Gals photo, John Thomas." No reference to my book. No, well, respect.
But my friends around the planet commented on the video on YouTube. In response, Gibson has kindly provided in the text below the YouTube video a link to the Kalamazoo Gals website and has changed "Gibson Gals" to "Kalamazoo Gals."
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Yeah, when one of the male employees says, “So for the last almost 130 years we’ve celebrated women in the workforce at Gibson…” it makes you wonder if they’ve read your book. Even after the book was published, Gibson seemed in denial that the Kalamazoo Gals existed. Perhaps it was because Gibson’s wartime production of guitars violated War Production Board restrictions? Who knows.