SS Thomas Gallaudet and CSDR Father Perry Seely

Following the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Congress declared war on Japan and Germany. With millions of young men drafted into military service, deaf men and women from all over the country were hired to help build war equipment such as tanks, planes, weapons, and uniforms.

In 1942,  CSDR Founder Perry Seely was hired to work at Terminal Island in Long Beach, where Liberty ships were being built.  Seely had a painting business in Nebraska in the 1910s.  With his experience, he was assigned to paint mostly gray on new ships.  The gray color was chosen for its difficulty in being detected at a distance by enemy ships.  Two major shipbuilding harbors in the LA region were in Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Perry Seely was an experienced painter and painted cargo ships to support the war effort in the 1940s.

With a large workforce of deaf employees in LA and LB during the war years from 1942 to 1945, the Los Angeles Club of the Deaf (LACD) saw attendance at the deaf-owned club in South Gate surge.  The club became a hub for socialization 24 hours a day.  The club sold meals, provided entertainment, and shared job information about openings in war production.  Of course, Seely was a frequent attendee at the LACD.

The Los Angeles Club of the Deaf owned the second floor. The photo was taken in 1956. Photo credit: LACD

The LACD became a 24-hour social hub during World War II. Thousands of deaf employees were hired to produce war equipment to fight Germany and Japan from 1942 to 1945. See the long bar countertop for drinks and meals at all hours. Photo credit: LACD

With 2,700 Liberty ships built at 17 ports on the US coasts on the Atlantic and Pacific sides.  Each ship was named in honor of Americans for their success in different categories.   Seely was a student at Gallaudet University for two years from 1903 to 1905.  Seely’s surviving letter mentions his campaign to push the nomination of the Rev Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet for consideration by the warship board.  He argued that Gallaudet was instrumental in establishing the first permanent school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817.   The school’s founding helped spark the establishment of additional state schools for the deaf across the country thereafter, including CSDR.

With the mushrooming number of state schools for compulsory and vocational education of deaf children, school graduates became a ready pool of employees in various fields, including wartime production.  It all started with the pioneer efforts of the Rev Gallaudet for educational and vocational benefits.  In 1943, warship board granted the name request of the deaf shipbuilding employees led by Seely.

This is Terminal Island in Long Beach where Perry Seely and other deaf workers built Liberty ships.

SS Thomas H Gallaudet became an important symbol of the deaf workforce's contributions to the war effort.  This ship was constructed at Terminal Island in Long Beach, where Seely worked.  He took pride in painting the ship that soon saw war in action.  As a painter, he applied protective coatings and markings in the final stage before launch.  The SS Gallaudet ship was completed in November 1943 and used to transport cargo like tanks and other war equipment.

When World War II ended in the fall of 1945, the SS Gallaudet ship was sold to various operators under different country flags for cargo transportation around the world for the next 24 years.  On March 25, 1969, the ship ran aground and broke in two, sinking off the coast of Japan.   The era of SS Thomas H Gallaudet came to an end.

In actuality, SS Gallaudet, with 26 years served, lasted longer than most Liberty ships in this category, which were expected to serve for 5 to 10 years.  They were built quickly and cheaply to build a large armada of ships to fight Germany and Japan on two separate and simultaneous fronts.

As a side note on deaf Rosie the Riveter, in 1987, I met a 103-year-old diminutive and deaf lady in San Diego. Her name is Pauline Sticht (1884-1987).

What impresses me about Pauline is that she supported the war effort twice: in 1917 for the First World War and again in 1942 for the Second World War, at the same defense plant on Naval Station North Island, adjacent to Coronado in San Diego.   

Pauline told me she built biplanes (planes with two wings) in WWI and jet fighters in WWII.  She riveted the metal plane body sheets to keep them tightly together.   For this type of work, she was called Rosie the Riveter.

Pauline was born circa 1884 and went to the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville circa 1890. She graduated circa 1903. Pauline died soon after I met her in 1987.

Seely, as a ship painter, and Pauline, as Rosie the Riveter, proved to supervisors and hearing co-workers that deaf people can make good employees in the war production or any other industry.

In closing, we thank Perry Seely and his shipbuilding crew for their success in naming the Rev Thomas H Gallaudet as a merchant vessel during World War II.

Kevin Struxness, ‘76, MA

Editor, CSDR Old Times

25 April 2026