Tag Archives: Rosie the riveter

While most associate Rosie the Riveter with the women who worked in the factories during World War II, there was a less well known group of women who also volunteered to help the war effort during that same period of time.

The Women’s Land Army was a band of approximately 3 million women who were recruited to work on farms, dairies, and in canneries, to help continue to provide food for the nation while the men were at war. The Women’s Land Army (WLA) placed women where help was most needed, in the Midwest, South, and South-West states. They were paid competitive wages, and proved to be just as productive workers as men. When asked by a reporter if the women would quit after they were exposed to the hard work, one farmerette responded “Would we quit? No, soldiers don’t.” Many of the women in the WLA found the work and the income satisfying and continued their employment after the war ended.

The Women’s Land Army was inspired by Rosie the Riveter, and formed after several women’s groups and the YWCA convinced congress to allow women to help with the farm labor, since food was already being rationed and it was becoming more scarce. Where ever the WLA worked they helped to stabilize local economies and they had a significant impact on workforce policies and stereotypes for future generations.

Take a few minutes to learn more about this fascinating piece of our history:

This is a 10 minute video, with really interesting information and great pictures! Watch for lots of overalls!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXcjQhtpsg

Or if you only have 3 minutes, watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr1N45JGayU&sns=em

recruiting poster

An EXCELLENT free on-line book “On The Farm Front”, that is filled with letters from one farmerette’s experience in the Women’s Land Army in Ohio

http://lettersfromlandarmycamp.org/?page_id=1585

A link to one of the letters: http://lettersfromlandarmycamp.org/?page_id=1439

A picture included with a letter home. "Me thinning peaches & my boss"

Women's Land Army ID card

According to the Encyclopedia of American Economic History, “Rosie the Riveter” inspired a social movement that increased the number of working American women by 57% between 1940 and 1944, and was one of the most widely recognized icons of the 1940’s.  She embodied everything a woman could want to be: attitude, beauty, and strength.

The iconic “Rosie the Riveter” poster may have been one woman, but it was millions of women who, combined, gave Rosie the meaning it has today.  Women actually comprised 1/3 of the work force during WWII (that’s 18 million women working!)  This is the reason we call ourselves Rosies Workwear…not Rosie’s Workwear.  It’s not that our grammar is bad, we are simply paying tribute to all of the women of the past, present, and future who give “Rosie” the reverence deserved.

It’s up to all of us to continue the tradition of strong, self-reliant women.  What will you accomplish in your Rosies?

Fun Fact: Marilyn Monroe considered herself a Rosie!

We’re starting the New Year with a “can do attitude”.  To get all Rosies in the mood, we’re giving away a free Rosies bandana every Friday in January and February. At the end of each month, we’re giving away a free pair of Rosies coveralls. Just let us know what projects you have planned for 2011 on our Facebook page for a chance to win.

 Geraldine Doyle, the model for this poster, died at the end of 2010 at 86. Her image was inspiration for Rosies workwear and countless women. For her full story, visit http://wapo.st/hdnH4N.

Here are some of the bigger projects, we have planned at Rosiesworkwear:

• Turn a 1962 Traveleaze trailer into a farm stand
• Look at new products for Rosies workwear
• Re-organize the barn
• Find a U.S. manufacturer for Rosies workwear
• Pull out the side yard and replant
• Recover some old furniture
• Plant tomatoes in such a way that the gophers, squirrels and rabbits won’t get them
• Put up fencing so the goats can work their magic on the hillside

What’s yours? Let us know.

As the most famous of all labor icons, Rosie the Riveter represents the can-do attitude of women and marks their entry in previously male-dominated jobs and into the American workforce in mass. So how far have women come since 1942?  Well for starters, for the first time in history, American women workers are more numerous than male workers, reports Yahoo’s Catherine Dagger.   She attributes this statistic to technology at home and at work. She reasons we don’t have to wring wash out by hand with super efficient front loader washing machines, so we have the time to work and manage the house. Yippee!  And we don’t have to lift vats of molten steel to manufacture goods. We have robots for that.

A factor she doesn’t mention in the burgeoning class of women workers is the down turn in the economy. According to U.S. labor statistics, more men have lost their jobs than women during this Great Recession. Unemployment rate for adult men is 9.7 percent. For adult women it is 7.9 percent.  And here’s the rub. More men have lost their jobs because men still make more money than women. (In 2008, women earned 77% as much as men.)

A historical side-note: when the first Rosies went to work in 1942, the National War Labor Board urged employers to voluntarily make “adjustments which equalize wage or salary rates paid to females with the rates paid to males for comparable quality and quantity of work on the same or similar operations.” Not only did employers fail to heed this “voluntary” request, but at the war’s end most women were pushed out of their new jobs to make room for returning veterans. For more about this wage gap, read Borgna Brunne’s article . So as in the past, while we’ve come a long way, we still have a ways to go.

And in true Rosie fashion, we keep moving along despite the obstacles (or lower pay). Take Gloria Georger.  She took over as manager of Ford Motor Co.’s stamping plant in Chicago Heights and became one of five female managers at the automaker’s 27 plants in the U.S.. Her boss is also a woman, Jan Allman.  And there are countless others, many of whom have been featured on this blog. Just check out our Facebook page.

This Labor Day, our thoughts are with the original Rosies who stepped up while their men were at war. And for the Rosies today, who also step up while their men are forced to step out. While a lot has changed since 1942, women’s conviction and willingness to show our strength has not.

If you have a Rosies story, we’d love to hear it. Email us at info@roisiesworkwear.com or comment to this blog post.

Did you know that Rosie the Riveters real name is Mary Doyle Keefe? The original Rosies the Riveter was made famous after a painting of her by Norman Rockwell first appeared in 1943 on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post and, later, on war bond posters. Keefe, who was paid $10 to pose, came to embody the can-do attitude of American women whose work helped win the war. It is arguably among the most recognizable images of World War II and transformed Keefe from a small-town switchboard operator into an American icon.

In a USA Today article, Keefe tells the story of how she was living with her family in Arlington, Vt., at the time, not far from where Rockwell lived with his family and had a studio.”The telephone office was in my mom’s house, and he would come in to pay his bill,” Keefe recalled, in the article. “He knew who I was and asked if I would sit for a picture. Gene Pelham, his photographer who moved from New York, would take a picture and Norman Rockwell would cut out what he wanted. You didn’t sit there while he was painting the whole thing, which was good.”

Keefe described how she had received endless ribbing about the now famous image of a brawny working woman breaking for lunch with a ham sandwich in hand, pneumatic riveter on her lap and copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf underfoot. Her body looked nothing like that in real life, said Keefe, especially the muscular arms.

Rockwell sent her a written apology.”The kidding you took was all my fault, because I really thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen,” Rockwell wrote in the 1967 letter.

Now 87 and living in an apartment at the McLean Home, Keefe tells her full story in this article from USA Today.