Source: Blog – Alliance for American Manufacturing

Women workers install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17 bomber at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach, Calif. in 1942. Better known as the “Flying Fortress,” the B-17F is a later model of the B-17, a long range, high altitude, heavy bomber, with a crew of seven to nine. | Getty Images

The crucial contributions of women kept American factories running during World War II.

Women across the United States are celebrating Rosie the Riveter Day today, honoring the role American women played in America’s victory in World War II.

It is also a day to recognize women’s entrance into manufacturing work, a profession that had always been considered “men’s work” before the war. We honor the legacy of the women who in the early 1940s entered the workforce to keep our nation’s manufacturing industries at full production.

By taking on non-traditional roles these women, known as Rosie the Riveters, helped produce critical supplies, support the Allied fighting forces, and reshape American society while the men of America were overseas serving their country.

There remains a debate about who was the first woman to be given the Rosie the Riveter moniker, but the term became widely used to describe all women helping the stateside war effort. Artists and writers used depictions of Rosie the Riveter to encourage women to join the manufacturing workforce between 1943 and 1945.

Major commemorative ceremonies will be held in cities across America today, including those at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and at The Steel Plant Museum of Western New York in Buffalo. These observances are held in conjunction with Women’s History Month.

In Richmond, California, Rosie the Riveter Day will also commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park. Five original Rosie the Riveters, who are all nearly 100 years old, will be on hand to meet the public and share their experiences. Many of the San Francisco East Bay area Riveters worked in the massive shipyards of Henry J. Kaiser.

“If people weren’t working in the shipyards, they were in businesses where they were making components for ships or airplanes,” said Pamela Kruse-Buckingham, the parks communications and marketing manager. “There are men who are considered home front workers. Rosie is kind of that femininized idea of it but there were a lot of men that didn’t go overseas to fight. They were here working. Somebody had to teach these women.

“Rosie the Riveter Trust was founded first, and one year later the park was founded in 2000. The scale and scope of everything that was happening here during the second World War was still here, so people got together to create this park and restore some of these buildings for light manufacturing.

“The short story is the Trust formed to work on preserving these buildings and having this park here.”

Another major remembrance will be held at Michigan’s state capitol in Lansing, where the members of the Rosie the Riveter Association of Michigan will honor Rosies past and present.

“Our overall mission is to honor the Rosies and engage our local community with their own Rosies and World War II heritage,” said Jeannette Gutierrez, executive director of the Michigan Rosies. “Rosie Day is an example of a wonderful partnership with the Capitol Area Manufacturing Council and several other Michigan manufacturing councils to celebrate the living Rosie the Riveters.”

Among the festivities will be a presentation by the Tuskegee Airmen and a riveting station where members of the public can experience the feeling of riveting just like so many Rosies did at the Ford Willow Run Bomber Plant in Detroit. The Willow Run Rosies helped produce 8,685 B-24 Liberator bombers, which at its peak production rate was one bomber every hour.

There will also be a flyover of vintage aircraft, which ironically will be piloted by women. Women with pilot licenses were not allowed to fly for the U.S. military during the war.

One of the three Rosies that will be honored at the Michigan ceremony is 103-year-old Fran Masters, who worked at Willow Run during the war.

“There are still members of the World War II Greatest Generation alive, and they are all around 100 years old, give or take a year or two,” said Gutierrez. “Delphine Klaput is 100 and she worked at Glen L. Martin aircraft in Maryland and Virginia Rusch, who is 97 years old, was a Rosie at Republic Aircraft in Detroit.

“For the modern women of manufacturing, from the factory floor to the C-Suite, the Rosies opened the door for them.”

At war’s end, women were dismissed of their manufacturing jobs, and it took another 30 years for women to integrate into America’s manufacturing industry. Today they’re commonplace on production lines.

“They never forgot what women can do, and it paved the way for the changes that happened a couple of decades later,” said Gutierrez. “The unity is the other part of the story. It was a united nation pulling together to achieve something really valuable and worthwhile.

“We could not have won the war without all of the things women built and how they kept things running. Women helped save the world, and they paved the way in manufacturing for young girls today.”

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