Take Two Cups of Copper Flour

Eighty years ago on September 9, 1944, shortly after the first formal meeting of the Metal Powder Association, predecessor of the Metal Powder Industries Federation, the Saturday Evening Post ran an advertisement from General Motors describing how powder metallurgy was helping to win World War II.

Here is the General Motors “Victory is Our Business” ad content as written in 1944:

Don’t look so startled, Sis. That’s our recipe for whipping up many kinds of those vital little parts your big brothers use in the ducks they tear around in, and the planes they bounce against in the sky, Hard on machinery, those kids. So we bake ‘em plenty the best.

Years ago, research men of General Motors pioneered a cost-cutting way of making little odd-shaped things out of powdered metal.

Powdered copper, tin or iron—fine as flour—was pressed into all kinds of small shapes, and baked. It was so swift and simple a way to make essential small parts that it proved a real help in General Motors’ effort to make more and better things for more people.

Then overnight, tough, long-lasting bearings, gears and other vital parts for war machines were demanded by the millions. Demanded now. Speed was everything.

And right there, our powdered -metal men showed what they could do. And it was plenty. They saved man-hours at every turn. They shaved time and costs. Little, top-quality parts for engines and planes, almost impossible to cast or machine, poured forth in floods. All because these men had learned how to make parts of metal “flour” much as a good cook might bake biscuits!

In war machines, as in your automobile, such little, unseen parts must be able to stand up and take it just as more obvious parts must do. And the peacetime pioneering that developed them for your car proved priceless in this wartime emergency.

Such pioneering has enriched our knowledge because, in our land, it merits and receives a just reward.

This is the idea that gave Americans the full life we lived in prewar times. It has certainly proved its worth in war. And it will provide more and better things for more people in the coming years of peace.

A special thanks to Chapin Paullin, Capstan, for sharing this time capsule ad.