Rosie the Riveter: An Inspiration After All These Years. The image of Rosie the Riveter as a hard working woman in a man’s world was born in the 40s. As World War II progressed and more men went off to fight, America saw a drastic decline in their male workforce. To keep America’s factories in service, manpower was exchanged for womanpower. As part of a campaign to get women into the workforce, the Rosie the Riveter poster and the slogan “We Can Do It!” Became popular. A disturbing trend to traditionalists, the Rosie the Riveter image became the icon for female empowerment as women across the country took up hammers and drills (and riveters!) To do their part in keeping America running. Women took on this new role with determination and a sense of duty.
In the post-Depression war era, a “Rosie” was any woman that picked up a tool to do “a man’s work” for the benefit of her country. Modern day Rosies are still making advances in the fight for gender equality. Racecar driving is just one example. Rosie Link Round-up. Hot off the Press! Rosie the Riveter Returns to Willow Run Bomber Plant One Last Time. The Detroit Free Press has a nice June 17, 2013 article about real Rosies, members of the American Rosie the Riveter Association, returning to visit the Willow Run Bomber Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan one last time.
Sadly, the plant where these Rosies helped build B-24 bombers is likely to be destroyed by GM’s bankruptcy trust unless the Yankee Air Museum can raise the $6 Million necessary to save it. At the plant’s peak efficiency, they could finish one every 55 minutes. We think it is awesome that there are still Rosies around to visit such historically important sites. “It was hot in here,” she said, strolling carefully into the plant with her nephew providing stability.
“The afternoon shift was better because of the air.” - Blanche Mericle, 95, of Belleville, Michigan. “This is such an important part of American history,” Hotton said. Rosie Link Roundup The Detroit Free Press Article “Rosie the Riveter returns one last time to former bomber plant in Ypsilanti” Hot off the Press! A Real Rosie from Rifle, CO Shares Her Story. Hot off the Press! “Rosie Go Back to the Kitchen!” Says Sexist Ad. Shame on you, Procter & Gamble! After everything that has been said over the past week about P&G’s sexist advertisement that put a Swiffer™ in Rosie’s hand, we aren’t sure that there is much more to say other than “shame on you!” For all of the strides that women have made through the generations since the original Rosies gave up so much and faced so much adversity, we find it hard to believe that you would trivialize what Rosie the Cultural Icon has come to mean. With that said, here’s some links to the reaction around the web. Rosie the Riveter Link Roundup The Inquisitr.com has “Swiffer’s Rosie The Riveter Celebrates Unpaid Female Labor In The Home” KpopStarz.com offers us “Swiffer’s ‘Rosie the Riveter’ Ad Out of Step With New Study Claiming Women Top Earners in 40 Percent of U.S.
Households” AdRants.com has “Swiffer Apologizes For Putting Rosie the Riveter Back in the Kitchen” Guest Post from Denise Wy on Dreams, Hard Work, and Success. This is a guest post by our dear friend, Denise Wy, from the awesome blog which focuses on finding your success by pursuing your passion. Just like me, Rosie the Riveter, Denise has worked hard to build her success and chase her dreams. Denise is a member of the generation of Rosie’s granddaughters that are enabled to push boundaries and succeed in ways unimaginable for women not too long ago.
Thanks to the sacrifices that countless Rosies made, leaving the kitchen to work in traditionally male jobs, breaking gender roles and stereotypes, the way was paved for modern day Rosies like Denise to follow their dreams. We live in a time where dreams are easily attainable…that is, if you’re willing to work hard for it.
Seriously, just explore the internet and you’ll see a lot of success stories about people taking the big leap to pursue the things that make them happy and are now enjoying the fruits of their hard work. Hot Off the Press! Time Magazine’s Poll of the Most Influential People Who Never Lived. From May 21, 2013, Time.com has a poll online that asks: Which fictional characters — from ancient mythology to Madison Avenue — do you think have had the greatest impact on our lives? Joining Rosie the Riveter are Santa Claus, James Bond, Harry Potter, Superman, Darth Vader, The Great Gatsby, and many more.
Right now, it looks like Rosie is about halfway down the list in the poll results! This is a bit disappointing. In this poll, she may not be winning in the “most influential” category, but here at RosietheRiveterWeCanDoIt.com , we believe that she is certainly higher up on the list in terms of having “greatest impact on our lives”! After all, Rosie in all her forms, be it the song by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, the Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell, or the J. Howard Miller poster, represents something much more “real” than the Man of Steel or Homer Simpson or Lara Croft could ever do or be for America.
Cast YOUR vote today! Vote for Rosie the Riveter at This Link! Hot off the Press! Save Rosie the Riveter’s Bomber Plant. The May 17th edition of the Detroit Free Press (this Rosie’s hometown) has an excellent and thorough article on the Yankee Air Museum’s effort to preserve a section of the Willow Run B-24 Bomber Plant, near Ypsilanti Michigan. They need to raise $5 Million to save a part of the massive factory. Hundreds of Rosies worked here and it is an important piece of American History that shouldn’t see the fate that is befalling many important historic sites around our country that are being plowed under for big box stores that start with “W”. “The idea is that the Willow Run plant … played an important role in changing the composition of the American workforce,” said Michael Montgomery, a consultant to the foundation. “There’s a million Willow Run stories out there that intersect with so many families and so many institutions in this area.”
Rosie the Riveter Link Roundup Detroit Free Press ’Save the bomber plant’: Yankee Air Museum raising funds to acquire part of former GM plant. Hot off the Press! A Mother’s Day Tribute to Warren Buffet and an Original Rosie the Riveter. Hot off the Press! When Rosie Went to Work, Who Watched Her Kids? This May 18th, 2013 article at the Richmon d Confidential tells the somewhat forgotten story of another aspect of what happened when former house wifes and full time moms left their kitchens and headed to the assembly lines when their men went off to World War II. “The government reluctantly created childcare centers during World War II” to enable women to enter the workforce, said Fousekis.
The system served 25,000 children in California alone. But with the war over, the government saw no need to sustain the centers, making it impossible for many mothers to continue working. Childcare, then as now, was a necessity for mothers who wanted—or needed—to work outside the home. So as childcare centers shut down across the country, Fousekis said, a coalition of mothers and educators in California organized to convince state legislators to keep the system running. Rosie the Riveter Link Roundup Life on the Homefront: With Mother at the Factory…Oregon’s Child Care Challenges. Happy Anniversary to the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) Hot off the press! Legacy of ‘Rosie the Riveter’ lives on in Her Daughter. SHFG/OHMAR-Panel Introduction, "Rosie the Riveter Revisited"
Hot off the Press! Rosie the Riveter Unites Generations through Art. Hot off the Press! ‘Rosie the Riveter’ Pointed to Them from the The Norman Transcript. A Real Life Rosie from Colorado Springs. Northwest Folklife Festival | Rosie the Riveter: A World War II Icon and Part of Washington History. Rosie the Riveter We Can Do It Vintage iPad Mini Cover on Wanelo. A Real Life Rosie from Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Rosie the Riveter Today. Where Are They Now? Although now well into their eighties and nineties, many of the strong-willed women who embodied the Rosie the Riveter image of the 1940s are still alive today, and they hope that what Rosie stands for stays alive forever. There is a series of initiatives to honor the women who worked so hard for the war effort in 1940s.
While they created many things—ships, aircrafts, even atomic bombs—there was one thing they definitely destroyed: gender norms. A small cluster of perceptions and stereotypes about Rosie the Riveter steers her image, but her legacy sometimes suffers simplification, and even misinterpretation. This is why some of the real Rosies are now reuniting to tell their personal stories and publicize the true reality of the Rosie movement. In New York City, New York University (NYU) joined forces with Spargel Productions, a film production company, to create a collection of oral histories through filmed interviews of real life Rosies. Rosie Link Roundup Thanks! Rosie the Riveter We Can Do It!
Rosie on a Wind Turbine. Following yesterday’s post about Rosie the Riveters in the modern day workplace and pushing into traditionally male-dominated jobs, the Energy Collective has this interesting article about the “Growing Green Economy” by Joseph Romm (April 10, 2013). Are women benefiting from the transition to a green economy as much as men? A new study suggests not, finding that women hold just three out of ten green jobs in the U.S. and are making less than men in the green sector. This seems like a good opportunity for women to be more involved in this area of the changing economy and to become better represented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
Wind Turbines. Rosie the Riveter On A Wind Turbine: Women And The Growing Green Economy. By Mari Hernandez and Rebecca Lefton In March, the Bureau of Labor Services released its green jobs report, which reported a total of 3.4 million jobs associated with the production of green goods and services in 2011 – up from 3.1 million green jobs in 2010. Growing at a rate four times faster than all other jobs, the green sector offers new opportunities for good-paying jobs across the U.S. and raises the question: Are women benefiting from the transition to a green economy as much as men? A new study suggests not, finding that women hold just three out of ten green jobs in the U.S. and are making less than men in the green sector.
In the report “Quality Employment for Women in the Green Economy,” the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) provides estimates of the number of green jobs held by women within each state, industry and occupation using data gathered from surveys (BLS Green Goods and Services Survey and U.S. Connect: Authored by: Joseph Romm See complete profile.
She’s Making History, Working for Victory, Rosie the Riveter! Rosie the Riveter: Women Working During World War II. Will the “Real” Rosie Please Stand Up? Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter was not one woman. She was Geraldine Doyle who found work as a metal presser in the American Broach & Machine Co. of Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was Rose Will Monroe, a Ford employee who built B-24 and B-29 bombers at the Willow Run Assembly Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. She was Rosalind P. Walter, from Long Island, who worked as a riveter on the night shift on a Corsair fighter airplane and who inspired the 1942 hit song “Rosie the Riveter.” That “Rosie” wasn’t any one individual is true on two levels. Norman Rockwell was the creative mind behind one of these fragments.
Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter Rosie, whose name we know from the lunchbox where her elbow rests indifferently, sits on a stump during her sandwich break, riveter in her lap, factory goggles pushed up on her forehead. The patriotic symbolism in the painting is abundant. Many scholars have noticed the image’s resemblance to Michelangelo’s “Prophet Isaiah,” as painted on the Sistine Chapel. A Brief History of the WASPs: A Different Kind of Rosie the Riveter. A Brief History of the WASPs: A Different Kind of Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter Information. The image most iconically associated with Rosie is J. Howard Miller's famous poster for Westinghouse, entitled We Can Do It! , which was modeled on Michigan factory worker Geraldine Doyle in 1942.
But the woman in the painting bore no name. In fact, this picture was not meant to represent Rosie the Riveter at all. Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the six million women who entered the workforce for the first time during World War II. Painted for the cover of the May 29, 1943 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter gave visual form to this phenomenon and became an iconic image of American popular culture. As a monumental figure clad in overalls and a work-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal her powerful, muscular arms.
During the war years, women became streetcar conductors, taxicab drivers, business managers, commercial airline checkers, aerodynamic engineers, and railroad workers. Myth-Making and the “We Can Do It!” Poster. A polished version of this post was published in Contexts. You can download it here. Most of our readers are probably familiar with the now-iconic “We Can Do It!” Poster associated with Rosie the Riveter and the movement of women into the paid industrial workforce during World War II: It is, by this point, so recognizable that it is often parodied or appropriated for a variety of uses (including selling household cleaners). The image is widely seen as a symbol of women’s empowerment and a sign of major gender transformations that occurred during the 1940s. In their article, “Visual Rhetoric Representing Rosie the Riveter: Myth and Misconception in J.
While the poster is often described as a government recruiting item (Kimble and Olson give many examples in the article of inaccurate attributions from a variety of sources), it was, in fact, created by J. The image that was more widely seen, and is often conflated with the “We Can Do It!” …Westinghouse used “We Can Do It!” Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II (9780517885673): Penny Colman. World War II Group Seeking Surviving ‘Rosies’ Rosie The Riveter | Penny Colman. This very cool photo shows the signatures of four women war workers–top: “Allie Mae & Kitty” bottom: “Pauline & Lavina”—on the underside of the wing of a fighter plane they helped build in 1943!
And the very cool photo has an equally very cool backstory: Ceryl Johns, a retired British Royal Navy Officer, discovered the plane, a Vought F4U Corsair, in a junkyard in New Zealand. He also located the daughter of “Kitty,” whose last name was Strickland. “Thanks! Plain and Simple,” an organization in West Virginia dedicated to honoring “Rosie the Riveters,” brought Johns, his 90-year-old mother, who was a war worker in Britain, together with Kitty’s daughter and other Rosies, at an event in Charleston, West Virginia in 2010. I recently learned this story from material Anne Montague, executive director of Thanks! Plain and Simple, sent me. We Can Do It! Rosie the Riveter Vintage WWII Print. The American Aircraft Factory in World War II - Bill Yenne.
Who Was Rosie the Riveter?: The American Factory Women of World War II | US History Scene. When most people think of American women during World War II, the iconic ‘Rosie the Riveter’ comes to mind. Rosie was the modern factory girl – a woman who could effortlessly bridge the gap between masculine and feminine. The war industry during WWII gave women the opportunity to earn their own living and contribute to the war effort. After the war, many female workers fought to remain in their jobs, while others used their earnings to establish households.
The imagery of “Riveters” we are accustomed to served as allegory; the war propaganda used “Rosie” as a metaphorical representation of the millions of women (of all colors and socio-economic classes) who took action during war time when patriarchal order was relaxed. These women joined the work force in order to help their country, to gain the benefits of employment, and to improve their quality of life. Fast Facts about Women in the Wartime Industry Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter For more information: How to Make A Rosie the Riveter Costume – You Can Do It! Will the “Real” Rosie Please Stand Up? Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter We Can Do It Vintage Premium Keepsake Boxes. Rosie the Riveter. Will the “Real” Rosie Please Stand Up? Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter. The Riveter, a Reluctant Symbol of Patriarchy.pdf. Real-life Rosie the Riveters reminisce about WWII. Rosie the Riveter Is More than a Hairdo.
W.Va. women share home front service during WWII. Podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/symhc/2008-12-03-symhc-rosie-riveter.mp3. The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter. "Rosie the Riveter" is not the same as "We can do it!" Rosie the Riveter. Danica Patrick owes round to Rosie the Riveter | Springfield News-Leader | news-leader.com. A 'Banner' Mystery: How Rosie The Riveter Became Laura The Luthier. Geraldine Hoff Doyle Dead: 'Rosie The Riveter' Inspiration Dies At 86. The Pop History Dig » Rosie the Riveter song. She’s Making History, Working for Victory, Rosie the Riveter! How to Make A Rosie the Riveter Costume – You Can Do It!