Has Rosie the Riveter died? Wichita news recently reported **that Wichita aviation legend “Rosie the Riveter” died at 101. **Connie Palacioz was shown in the social post proudly holding up the poster many Americans associate with Rosie the Riveter. Connie was a Rosie, but not the Rosie, and in this nuance, we see the complexity of history in the media age.
First, Palacioz was one of roughly 6.6 million additional women who entered the workforce during World War II. At 17, she became a riveter in a B-29 factory. That factory built 1,644 bombers during the war.
During World War II, as men were drafted, the American workforce needed new employees. Women working outside the home was already the norm for most Black women. For some places, segregation meant that the war effort needed white middle-class women to join the efforts. Cultural shifts, even when catalyzed by horrors of war, can often be hard to implement on demand. The US government started a concerted campaign to influence white women.
Coming off the Depression, when motherhood was often aligned visually with holding the family together and stretching the food, this new push was certainly an about-face. Framing the women on the line as aligned with the war effort was essential. The riveters’ work was dirty and physically taxing. The structure and type of labor were decidedly different from those of these women’s pre-War days. Hyping the historic importance, aligning women with nationhood and patriotism.
By the time Rockwell had created his version of Rosie the Riveter, the phrase had been in the common parlance. In early 1943, the song "Rosie the Riveter," by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, had become popular. In the lyrics, they celebrate, “She's a part of the assembly line/ She's making history, working for victory/ Rosie, the riveter.” The phrase had already been in common parlance before the song was released.
Riveters were also prominently featured in magazines and advertisements to acclimate families and the men serving with this cultural shift. The fear was that fathers wouldn’t let “girls” work, and then men wouldn’t marry them when they got home. A Monsanto ad, also from 1943, frames the Riveter as feminine, with high heels and a fitted outfit. (Interestingly enough, when women took to the production lines, they worked without the protective steel-toe shoes their male counterparts had worn, as steel-toe shoes in women’s sizes wouldn’t be available until July, 1943.) In the text, Monsanto mentions that Rosie would return to housework after the war. Rosie is making history in the nation’s time of need, but the nation won’t change for her after the war.
Many people visualize the 1942-43 ‘We Can Do It!’ poster by J. Howard Miller when they hear the phrase ‘Rosie the Riveter. His poster likely preceded the phrase. But Naomi Parker-Fraley might have been one of the inspirations. Miller was hired by the Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee to create a series of posters for the war effort. He might have been inspired by Parker-Fraley’s well-published photograph. Other scholars suggest other women as the inspiration for the poster. Most likely, Miller drew on many different images and stories to create his image.
Miller’s image became organically connected to the public imagination with the concept of Rosie. Unlike the Rockwell, which had copyright issues, the Miller was widely shared and adapted. The artist’s framing of the working woman also differed considerably, likely impacting the reach. Miller’s woman looks at the viewer. While her arm is flexed, she’s not very muscular. This is a woman who has left the kitchen for the factory. Her new working conditions are only clear in the workshirt and wrapped hair. She is framed within the existing paradigm of femininity.
Rockwell, in comparison, showed Rosie, whose name is obvious on her lunchbox, as a muscular, overall-clad woman. Her large tool is in her lap as she takes a break for her sandwich. In this Memorial Day issue, Rosie has her feet on a copy of Mein Kampf, a clear sign that she is part of the effort to defeat Hitler. Rockwell drew her pose from the Prophet Isaiah in the Sistine Chapel. But his Rosie is even more muscular, not unlike Michelangelo’s depictions of the prophets. In her effortless self-assurance, she didn’t comply with contemporary images of femininity. She looks as if she’d always done this work. She also doesn’t look like she planned to leave the workforce.
When the troops returned from serving, these hard-working women were expected to leave the workforce, as I’ve written before. The period after the war saw the rise of suburbia and the American marketing push towards nuclear families. Connie left the workforce to marry and have children. She had 4 children, 1 foster child, 13 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, 9 great-great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. That said, the workforce participation rate for women has never reached pre-WW II levels.
Connie was also one of many women who helped celebrate the women of World War 2. For the last 26 years of her life, Palacioz worked to raise funds to restore a B-29 and educated young people about the legacy of Rosie the Riveters. She was one of many advocates for keeping oral histories. As a Mexican American, she wanted to ensure diverse stories of the war effort were shared.
Rosie is at once Connie, many other women who worked in factories, and also none of them. In the age of reproduction, Walter Benjamin wrote in 1936, “reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition.” In reproduction, meaning can be transformed, but also, specificity is lost. In generalizing, Rosie as a visual, the real stories of women like Palacioz often disappear. As lovers of history, we need to work to fight against the temptation to generalize to the point of forgetting.
Memory is constructed, but we are not impotent in its creation. As Roland Barthes put it in Mythologies, “myth transforms history into nature.” He points out that society has mythologies, often perpetuated to uphold certain norms. Rockwell’s and Miller’s images both do this. But Miller’s complies more closely to the previous norm, making it a perfect mythologizing tool. It’s hard to estimate how many Rosies are still alive, but as we see their stories shared, I invite you to remember that each of them is a Rosie. In remembering each of them, we counter the flattening of history that our multimedia age consistently performs. History can be rewritten, improved, diversified, and rectified. You can be part of that.
While our era can feel like a mind-numbing amount of bad information, we can also embrace the idea of agency in actively creating history. Participating in oral history is one way. Supporting diverse writers and sharing surprising stories can help. Working against misinformation is another way. And when you share misinformation, as we are all human and will, owning up to your mistake, rather than deleting without mention. We can all help ensure the future Rosies, maybe the many women working against authoritarianism, will be remembered for their complexity.
