Rosie the Riveter

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Lucy the Riveter

On Halloween this year, a couple of my favorite young relatives dressed up as Rosie the Riveter, the iconic WWII laborer who worked on critical jobs on the manufacturing line during the war.  "Rosie" is a compelling fictional character.  It’s important to consider how she came about and what she still symbolizes for women today.       

The “Women in War Jobs campaign” recruited women into the workplace during WWII.  It was a huge propaganda tool employed by the U.S. government.  The War Advertising Council targeted women already working, girls just out of high school, and ultimately married ladies in an attempt to get women into the workplace to fill important war production and civil service jobs.  The campaign was immensely successful. 

Behind the campaign were the ideas to use patriotism and fear to fill a need.  Workers were needed to fill critical jobs both for the war effort and the home front.  Women would help make the war come to an end sooner if they stepped up in the workplace while men were gone serving their patriotic duty.  Or, conversely, if women didn’t go to work, they might be viewed as slackers and more men would die if the war was prolonged.   

So, women met the call.  Six million more women were in the workforce in 1945 than in 1940 and they filled many previously male-dominated roles.  Although they did the same work, they earned about 65% less pay than the men who had done those jobs.  Women were also excluded from upper level positions.  A glass ceiling was firmly in place over their heads.      

J. Howard Miller's "Rosie"

Normal Rockwell, the famous illustrator, painted a version of Rosie, but the most well-known depiction was artist J. Howard Miller’s 1942 Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company poster of the girl flexing her bicep wearing a polka-dot scarf on her head.  Rosie was portrayed as strong, confident, and feminine.  

Rosie, as the song “Rosie the Riveter” (released in 1943) said was “...part of the assembly line, she’s making history, working for victory, Rosie the Riveter.”  A riveter operated the riveting gun in the manufacturing line, often in defense related industries.  In actuality, while many women worked in manufacturing, few women really did any riveting. 

Marie Ver Bruggen Bastien

Some local women did work in similar jobs in the defense industry.  In 1944, at age 19, Marie Ver Bruggen was recruited to work at the Sturgeon Bay shipyard as a welder.  Her brother, Norbert Ver Bruggen, was just nine years old at the time but he remembers that there was a huge demand for women workers during the war, especially girls like his sister who grew up on farms and were hard workers.  He says the women didn’t need prior training; they were trained on the job.  Marie Ver Bruggen worked as a welder for about a year.  Her sister Audrea would have also been recruited but she was not yet old enough to hold a job.        

Although it seems as though she was, Rosie was not really a feminist icon.  When the soldiers came home from war, they took back the jobs and women were pressured into taking lower paying jobs, “women’s work”. 

However, once some women had become accustomed to the financial independence and personal satisfaction of their work, there was no turning back.  They opened the door for themselves, their daughters, and other women seeking advanced education and personal achievement to further pursuing paid work.

Ka, a modern day look for "Rosie"

Setting aside the origin of this saying (it was a slogan created for a cigarette brand), it’s true; “You’ve come a long way, baby” in so many ways.  But when it comes to pay, women still receive only 77% of men’s wages for the same work.  Seventy years after Rosie, young ladies dressed up in Halloween costumes remind us that we are locked in a time warp of wage inequality.  Getting equal pay for equal work remains a woman’s fight to achieve a value that is, simply put, the right thing to do.