During World War II, women were integral in keeping ships sailing and planes flying. Nothing depicts that better than the iconic “Rosie the Riveter” poster. 

In 1943, Norman Rockwell painted a cover for “The Saturday Evening Post” featuring a woman in overalls eating a ham sandwich, her rivet gun resting across her lap. “Rosie” became the face of the hardworking women building the weapons of war.

Rockwell wasn’t the only artist inspired—Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb wrote “Rosie the Riveter,” a song praising the female welders, riveters and other trades working three shifts seven days a week to help the war effort. 

With thousands of men sent to war, women stepped in to fill the skilled labor occupations. Those unable to serve worked around the clock, often sleeping in hotels or boarding houses. Some had only one spare bed and the workers slept in shifts.

Women welders, riveters, boiler makers, ship fitters and laborers made up about 15% of the workforce, earning the same wages as men—$1.35 per hour and $1.50 on Sundays. 

Jeanne Gibson, 99, is one of the 109 surviving “Rosies.” When she was a high school senior, she remembers the principal connecting the radio to the PA system when President Roosevelt declared war. Eager to help, she joined the cadet nurse corps, volunteering to roll bandages and staple ration books. 

Gibson and a friend took a Greyhound bus to Seattle, getting a room in a private home. She joined the International Brotherhood of Welders, and after training, she had a choice of working for Boeing or at a shipyard. The shipyard paid better. 

Gibson ultimately landed at a Richmond, California shipyard, welding on destroyers inside a frigid steel shed. 

“We were working on cold steel and with cold steel…in a steel shed. It was cold!” Gibson said.

After the war, women returned to traditional roles, often earning less and receiving fewer promotions. Their wartime contribution was largely forgotten until former Rosie, Phyllis Gould, took action.

Believing that women who stepped into men’s shoes during the war deserved recognition, Gould wrote to President Clinton—and every president after—urging official acknowledgment of their contributions. 

In 2014, Vice President Biden responded. Gould and other Rosies traveled to Washington and were honored by President Obama, whose grandmother had worked in a bomber plant in Wichita, Kansas. 

Gould’s determination paid off. In 2020, March 21 was officially declared Rosie the Riveter Day.

Visit the Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park

Open daily, Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park in Richmond, CA features exhibits on WWII’s working women. On Fridays, former Rosies share their stories at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The museum is located at 1414 Harbour Way, #3000, Richmond, CA. Visit RosieTheRiveter.org or call 510-232-5050.