Rosies came from all walks of life – single, married, suburben housewife, farm girl, big city, small town – all coming together in the factories, into completely new experiences, to serve in a time of need. Just like Rosies during the war, Rosie Jane (L) and Rosie Robin (R) have […]
Rosies Are Resilient. Eleanor Stark, 95, still speaks her mind, still keeps her husband’s memory alive, still actively supports military organizations. In 1942, at the age of 17, she married Luther “Buck” Bagley. In short order she was a military wife and mother of a young son, whose husband was […]
Rosies Are Pioneers. The Minton Family made factory work during the war a family affair. Elizabeth “Liz” Minton, 95, her mother, grandmother, sister, and aunt were all Rosies during the war. Liz herself worked as a riveter and bucker at Doak Aircraft Company in Torrance, CA. Doak manufactured fuselage sections […]
Norman Rockwell’s image of “Rosie the Riveter” received mass distribution on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell’s illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her penny loafer a copy of Adolf […]
Rosies Are Adaptable. From farm life beginnings in Fulton, Mississippi to factory work in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to a career with Sears Roebuck and Company in Marietta, Georgia, Earline Gaither was faced with many changes throughout her life. As a teenage wife, whose husband was rejected from service due to a […]
Artist J. Howard Miller is thought to have based his “We Can Do It!” poster on a United Press International wire service photograph taken of a young female war worker, widely but possibly erroneously reported as being a photo of Michigan war worker Geraldine Hoff (later Doyle). More recent evidence […]
Where does the famous “We Can Do It!” poster come from? In 1942, Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller was hired by the Westinghouse Company’s War Production Coordinating Committee to create a series of posters for the war effort. One of these posters became the famous “We Can Do It!” image, […]
The term “Rosie the Riveter” was first used in 1942 in a song of the same name written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. The song was recorded by numerous artists, including the popular big band leader Kay Kyser, and it became a national hit.The song portrays “Rosie” as […]
Who really was Rosie the Riveter? Rosie the Riveter was an allegorical cultural icon of World War II, representing the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers […]
By Steve Forsyth, CAF Airbase Georgia Public Information Officer Betty Bishop could never have known that her WWII aircraft factory work when she was 18 would bring her a hero’s honor in 2020. Surrounded by a small crowd and numerous cameras, Betty watched in November as the Commemorative Air Force Airbase Georgia unveiled […]