We are so proud to have had Elizabeth Layton as part of our team this past year!
Liz graduated in December from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a Communications major in Business Ag. She is currently back home in Santa Rosa looking for new opportunities to spread her talents. We loved having her as part of team Rosie and wish her
the best in all her future adventures!
We know that for us she will always take her Rosies spirit with her. Thanks for all that you did Liz, you will be missed!
Liz is being replaced by Katie Crawford. Katie has been a part of Rosies for 10 years, she has been a Rosies model, helped create product ideas, worked at road shows selling and now we get to have her use her unique talent for writing by taking over the blog , newsletter and face book posting. Rosies has a lot planned for 2012 and we welcome Katie’s voice to keep the Rosies community connected.
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.
Hi Rosies Crew, My little action video of me capturing a honeybee swarm last week, features me wearing my Rosies coveralls-make no mistake that I’m trusting my Rosies. Whether it’s a mere 10,000 honeybees or when I’m in the apiary working with about 480,000 of them! I have plans to modify the wrist opening. I’m going to take out a few stitches in the side of the cuff, so that I can put some elastic through it, and then sew it back up. I need to make sure that the little darling honeybees can’t crawl up my sleeves! Best wishes, Valarie Wilson Beekeeper and “Rosie” Valarie Wilson is the winner of the “Rosies in Action Video Challenge”. As her prize, she selected a Rosies coverall in ‘blue denim’ with coordinating bandanna and a Rosies t-shirt. Check out the winning video below, to see Valarie capture a honeybee wearing her Rosies coveralls for protection.
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.
My little action video of me capturing a honeybee swarm last week, features me wearing my Rosies coveralls‚ make no mistake that I’m trusting my Rosies. Whether it’s a mere 10,000 honeybees or when I’m in the apiary working with about 480,000 of them! The video is too large to attach to an email, but it’s posted on my website here http://www.vtbeekeeper.com/photosyear3.html, at the bottom of the page, You need Flash to view it. I have plans to modify the wrist opening. I’m going to take out a few stitches in the side of the cuff, so that I can put some elastic through it, and then sew it back up. I need to make sure that the little darling honeybees can’t crawl up my sleeves!
1. You prefer a dirt manicure to a french one
2. Your alarm clock has feathers
3. You consider shiny power tools bling
4. Your idea of a desk job is building one.
5. You literally bring home the bacon (all 1200 pounds)
‘Rosie’ and coverall fan Leah Petersen was featured in “Street Monster,” a French stunting magazine, wearing her Rosies coveralls. She is one bad-ass, street biker chick! Click the image below to see the full spread in “Street Monster.”
Check out Rosies on Style, Substance, Soul – an awesome website for women. It was started by four mothers who say “watching our girls grow up in a world which focuses solidly on style has made us keenly aware of the need to throw some substance and soul into the mix.”
Unlike other style or fashion websites, stylesubstancesoul.com showcases products, work and style tips by women with substance. There are some great women on the site who are doing some pretty amazing things, just like Rosies in Action.
Send us a video of you in action, wearing your Rosies coveralls or overalls, and you will be entered to win an entire Rosies ensemble!
Rosies ensemble includes a coverall or overall of your choice, complete with one of Rosies new matching t-shirts or tank tops! And of course, a coordinating Rosies bandana.
Simply email movie file or YouTube link to info@rosiesworkwear.com. Video submissions are due by July 31st.
We will post select “Rosies in Action” video submissions on the Rosies Blog, so check back often to see entertaining video posts!
Sincerely,
