Existing comment:
Rosie the Riveter emerged as an emblem of the working woman during World War II, the center of a campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for defense industries.
Visualized in the early 1940s by American illustrators J. Howard Miller and Norman Rockwell, Rosie represented women who entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during the war as widespread male enlistment greatly diminished the industrial labor force. In 1943, when Rockwell painted his overall-clad icon, more than 310,000 women were employed in the U.S. aircraft industry alone, making up sixty-five percent of its total workforce compared to just one percent in the pre-war years. As a popular song by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb recounted:
All the day long whether rain or shine
She's a part of the assembly line
She's making history,
working for victory
Rosie the Riveter
By 1945, nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. Gains were transitory for many, however, as female workers were demobilized to make way for returning servicemen after the war. In later years, Rosie the Riveter came to symbolize women's rights and feminist causes. |