Rosie the Riveter

[Lenore]

One of my favorite real-life Rosie's:

thank goodness for these women, one and all!

Hey! That's what my hair looked like today!

(Not appropriate for a corporate office, but I don't care. )

 

[Lady Day]

These two images are awesome, and by the lighting and composition, deliberately composed to be used as promotional images to promote the agenda. Rosie was a big icon during the war effort for women.

LD

 

[zendy]

oh well in that case thanks for your enlightenment. As I was reading this it comes off quite defensive by a few posters, even mentioning THEIR OWN ARMS, as if I was talking about them, seems personal to me. this thread is hot now thanks to my comment....

I never intended to make my post seem defensive and sure as heck didn't take your opinion about drawing personally. I'm sorry if it somehow offended you that I posted a picture to illustrate my point.

 

[HadleyH]

"Rosie Marilyn"

...or rather Norma Jean, doing her bit for the war effort, taken in 1945 while working at Radio Plane Munitions Factory in Burbank, where she sprayed fire retardant on airplane parts and inspected parachutes to be sent to soldiers.

fftopic: This was the photo that appeared on the cover of "Yank" magazine, that started her carrer really, from there she became a model and the rest is history.

 

[Inky]

I just love that picture of Norma Jean before "it" all happened to her.

 

[HadleyH]

I just love that picture of Norma Jean before "it" all happened to her.

:arated:

Me too Inky!

 

[VintageVixie]

That one might be my favorite image in this thread. Lovely and strong.

 

[zendy]

That one might be my favorite image in this thread. Lovely and strong.

Mine too

 

[Blondie]

Tennessee, 1943. From the Library of Congress "Bound For Glory" exhibit.

I drive past the place where she used to work everyday on the way to my work !!! I often wonder if she is still alive & living in Nashville.

 

[SayCici]

I think it's interesting that so many women identify with her today. But then again I am not a feminist, so I feel less attached to this whole image. It's a pretty, working lady in a drawing to me and nothing more. It's art.

It would be better to just not respond to this, right? [huh]

Feminism isn't about burning bras or hating men. There is no shame. It is about equality. If you appreciate your right to vote and being able to make a choice about working outside of the home or have taken some college classes, you owe something to the women that came before you. Just the fact that you can say you "aren't a feminist" says something about the world we live in now and how much our circumstances have changed, just in 50 years. If you don't want those things, fine, but I like them and think there is still a ways to go.

"Rosie"s during WWII may very well not have considered themselves feminists or activists, but I think it probably had a very tangible, long lasting effect on them and the women and girls that have followed. Women began to see opportunities and possibilities for themselves where there weren't any before. Amelia Earhart may not have called herself a feminist, but is there any question what kind of impact she has left?

Preferably I would call myself a "humanist" because I believe in equality for everyone, and not just for my sex.

Mods, I'm truly sorry if this isn't appropriate, but I feel I have expressed myself politely and I just wanted a chance to respond to earlier commenters who had their say as well.

Thank you LD and LizzieMaine for sharing what you know! I took an Art History class and really enjoyed it, but it was from prehistoric to Renaissance so I did not know those things about Rockwell.

edit: my inbox has been emptied!

 

[HadleyH]

Another real life "Rosie""

I find this image beautiful.


Female worker,working in submarines and pt boats during WWII

 

[analiebe]

hear-hear cici... well written....


and just as a little add-on - i believe its quite a stretch for us to buy into the idea that feminism is a 'modern' movement of the 60s-70s or to assume that the majority of women pre-ww2 were all homemakers (in fact my latvian great-grandmother ran the families rural estate and university-educated both of her daughters (my grandmother - in dentistry & great-aunt - in accountancy) ... my german omi travelled alone at the age of 19 to palestine to be a nanny & tutor to a german templer family and spent her life studying politics & sociology, as well as raising a family of 5 children and having a home cooked meal on the table every night!


a couple of interesting quotes...
from... Holding Their Own: American Women in the 1930s - Susan Ware, (Boston: Twayne, 1982)

"The Depression did little to alter the role of women in the American workplace. According to the 1930 census almost eleven million women, or 24.3 percent of all women in the country, were gainfully employed... Women in the 1930s in fact entered the workforce at a rate twice that of men—primarily because employers were willing to hire them at reduced wages"

"Though some historians have argued that "feminism died" during the Depression, the economic emergency of the 1930s led to substantial political gains for women. The expansion of social welfare services in the New Deal, a field dominated by women, led to the appointment of more women in high government positions than ever before. As feminists, these women used their government posts to work on behalf of other women. New Deal politician Molly Dewson observed, "The change from women's status in government before Roosevelt is unbelievable." Prominent women appointed by Roosevelt included Frances Perkins, secretary of labor; Ellen Sullivan Woodward, head of the Women's and Professional Projects for the Works Progress Administration; Josephine Roche, assistant secretary of the treasury; and Lucille Forster McMillin, civil service commissioner. These and other appointments marked firsts for women: the first cabinet member, the first director of the mint, first woman ambassador, first judge on the Court of Appeals."

 

[HadleyH]

The real life Rosie the Riveter came in so many shapes and forms.

My other favorite is this one:




"Stock clerk takes inventory in a store room at North American Aviation Inc. Inglewood. California 1942 "

 

[Lily Powers]

Here's the Norman Rockwell one; I believe he came up with the name Rosie.

First of all, CiCi, you communicate beautifully. Brava.

Of all the Rosie depictions - the wonderful real women posing in the factories, the iconic poster of "man arms" Rosie [huh] shakeshead , this one by Norman Rockwell is by far the most intriguing to me. I mean, look at her - a redheaded cherub who took time to curl her hair, wearing a row of victory pins, a campaign button for what appears to be a female candidate (?), and her well-worn loafers are resting on a copy of "Mein Kampf." It's art that makes me think and imagine. I read that Rockwell posed her "as an homage to Michelangelo's frescoed depiction of the prophet Isaiah from the Sistine Chapel ceiling." Apparently, there was a popular 1942 song, "Rosie the Riveter" that paid homage to a female defense worker called Rosie the Riveter, and that name came to generalize all female defense workers. You can hear a sample of the song from "Sentimental Journey WWII Project" here. http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:rH53Poj5CaIJ:www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artists-Sentimental-Journey-WWII-Project-AJM-7001-MP3-Download/10911049.html+%22sentimental+journey+wwii+project%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

So, in trying to learn more about this Rosie, I'd like to present Mary Keefe, the model Norman Rockwell used for this painting:

And a 2007 article by Loretta Waldman, The Hartford Courant about Mary:

SIMSBURY, Conn. — At 79, Patricia Berberich is certainly old enough to have heard of Rosie the Riveter, but when it came to placing a face with the name, she admits her mind was blank.

So, when the woman dining with her one evening this spring at the McLean retirement home mentioned having been the model for artist Norman Rockwell's World War II-era heroine, Berberich politely excused herself to do a little research.

"My instinct was to get right to the Internet and look it up," she said. "Then I sent off to (the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.) to get a poster so she could sign it."

Berberich was hardly the first to make that request of Rosie, whose real name is Mary Doyle Keefe. Since posing for Rockwell in 1942, she has signed countless posters and autographs.

The painting, for which Keefe posed twice and was paid $10, 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.

Keefe thinks of herself as an accidental celebrity and still gets a thrill out of telling her story of posing for Rockwell when she was a red-haired 19-year-old. She went on to graduate from college, work as a dental hygienist, marry and raise four children.

Now 85 and living in an apartment at the McLean Home, Keefe said the buzz surrounding her being Rosie began spreading soon after she moved there from New Hampshire two years ago to be closer to a daughter who lives in Granby.

"I got a kick out of it," said Berberich, a neighbor at McLean who dines with Keefe regularly. "I remember my classmates going off to war after graduation."

"It's quite an honor to be asked by Norman Rockwell to pose for a picture," added Marion Strindberg, another neighbor at the home. "It's generally known, but she just told a small group of us. She is very quiet about it. Word went around slowly."

Asked to recount the serendipitous events that led to her fateful encounter with Rockwell, Keefe recites a well-worn script she committed to memory long ago. 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. "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."

For the first sitting, Keefe wore a white blouse beneath her overalls and a pair of saddle shoes. The look, however, wasn't quite right, she said, so Rockwell had her pose a second time wearing a blue blouse and penny loafers

Keefe said she has 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.

Rosie first appeared in 1943 on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post and, later, on war bond posters. Keefe said she didn't think of herself as special. Lots of townspeople posed for Rockwell during the 10 years he lived in Arlington, she said, including her uncle, who was in all four of the well-known Rockwell images popularly known as the "Four Freedoms".

Keefe's oldest son, Bill Keefe, recalls family trips to Arlington as a boy when his mother would walk down the street saying this or that person "was in such and such a painting by Rockwell."

"It was always a topic of conversation," he said. "It's part of the Keefe family legacy. We never had a problem coming up with a unique school project or something for show and tell."

But perhaps his proudest memory is of the Rockwell exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., about 10 years ago, to which his parents were invited and given a private tour. And in 2002, Mary Keefe and her late husband, Bob, were invited to New York by Sotheby's for an auction at which the Rosie the Riveter painting fetched $4.9 million, the world record for Rockwell's work at that time.

There, and at dozens of other events, Mary Keefe has gladly signed posters and given brief talks about her experience. She also has been a guest on national television, appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Good Morning America during the 50th anniversary of D-Day.

At McLean, she keeps a lower profile, but even there can't escape attention.

To promote a Nov. 5 flu shot clinic for employees, Denise Yorio, a registered nurse and staff infection control practitioner, put up posters bearing Rosie's image and asked Keefe to autograph pictures. Nurses dressed up in "Rosie get-ups," she said, and rolled up their sleeves.

"We made it a big social event," Yorio said. "We've never done so many in such a short time."

Cheers to you, Mary Keefe!

 

[jetgirl]

CiCi, thank you for your well written post! I'm sure many many women just worked to get the men home, but I can bet there were also many many disappointed when the war ended and they were asked to leave the workforce again. I know my grandmother is very proud of working through the 30's and 40's (and of buying her own car); although she did not work in fabrication.
Zendy, hello to a fellow iron worker! Although I would hesitate to call myself a proper welder, maybe a welderette. I feel like I look more like the picture of the sub welder than Rosie, not as put together as the Rosie's!
I've seen that picture of the Nashville woman riveting before and I love it. She looks so beautiful and in control.

One reason I love all the women working photos of the 40's is that their clothes are so translatable to my life, much more so than dresses everyday. Like I mentioned, I do metal fabrication for art projects and I work at a computer (in a weird very casual dressing yet Hollywood industry -- can you say very expensive t-shirts and jeans? It's silly.) I've been wearing high waisted trousers and button down shirt lately emulating that look and it works very well for me. And I just got a vintage coveralls (not overalls) pattern for the workshop I need to find time to make. Also, it is wonderful to see women working, and making things -- the everyday woman is not as easy to find as the glamorized posed endlessly primped goddesses.

 

[HadleyH]

Another poster from the war years.

 

[cecil]

and just as a little add-on - i believe its quite a stretch for us to buy into the idea that feminism is a 'modern' movement of the 60s-70s or to assume that the majority of women pre-ww2 were all homemakers ...

I don't think anybody really believes that feminism was 'invented' that late...the earliest known feminist text available today was written around 1405. The reason why the word "feminism" makes people think of the second-wave feminists of the 60s and 70s is because it was the first period where the term was widely used. It has been used retroactively ever since.

And the majority of women DIDN'T work back then, or they worked then married. Not all, but most. Even up to the 1950s it was around a 30/70 split when it came to women who worked versus women who stayed at home. It was even less before then. It is safe to assume that most women were homemakers back then because it is fact. That and they were not career women as we know them today by a long stretch. The women who went to work during the depression did so because they needed to eat, not because they decided they wanted a "caree-ah". Prior to the depression the small percentage of women who worked were overwhelmingly of the lower working classes.

Moving on..

Rosie was never intended to be a feminist icon but I can see why she was picked up as such during the 60s and 70s. She's a strong woman in the workforce, more than appropriate for a movement which equal rights in the workplace was a big part of. I'm not sure why this is seen as a bad thing, if any ladies don't like the idea feel free to forfeit your reproductive rights and half your weekly pay in protest. Many war propaganda posters have been rejigged for a different cause, or even profit. See "America Wants You", "Keep calm & Carry on" and more recently the "Hope" Obama poster. It happens.

More Rosies!

 

[Lady Day]

This was cool, thanks for posting it. I took this as an article on the model and her life after the painting debuted, but not on the actual thought process of Rockwell and what he was trying to convey with the piece. That stuff is still a mystery and will be left for art historians to speculate about for generations.

LD

 

[Lady Day]

I don't think anybody really believes that feminism was 'invented' that late...the earliest known feminist text available today was written around 1405. The reason why the word "feminism" makes people think of the second-wave feminists of the 60s and 70s is because it was the first period where the term was widely used. It has been used retroactively ever since.

Well said.

Rosie was never intended to be a feminist icon but I can see why she was picked up as such during the 60s and 70s. She's a strong woman in the workforce, more than appropriate for a movement which equal rights in the workplace was a big part of.

60s and 70s aside, Rosie was propaganda of the time. A a mascot for women with new powers that had not been manipulated yet. This was the first generation of women who were born with the right to vote. Im sure you could find political affiliations of all spectrums grab into her image to garner support from women of the time who identified with her.

Interesting stuff.

LD

 

[cecil]

60s and 70s aside, Rosie was propaganda of the time. A a mascot for women with new powers that had not been manipulated yet. This was the first generation of women who were born with the right to vote. Im sure you could find political affiliations of all spectrums grab into her image to garner support from women of the time who identified with her.

Interesting stuff.

LD

I never thought of that! :eusa_doh: Interesting indeed!