Analysis Of Rosie The Riveter

To this day the women’s suffrage movement ignites women in the present to keep those right burning. Alice Paul and her fellow women suffrages demonstrated through speeches, lobbying and petitioning Congressional Committees, with parades, picketing and demonstrations, and with arrest that lead to imprisonment. These women express courage that women still uphold for years after their legacy has passed on, such as the article “Women’s Strike for Equality,” by Linda Napikoski, in the demonstration that was held on August 26, 1970 on the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage. As well as an article “Women to Protest For Equality Today,” by United Press that talks about on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the women’s suffrage and “declared war on firms that Damage the Image,” of the fair sex. Alice Paul, set the stage for inspiring women to fight for their rights everywhere across the world.

The role of women in American history has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries. In less than a hundred years, the role of women has moved from housewife to highly paid corporate executive to political leader. As events in history have shaped the present world, one can find hidden in such moments, pivotal points that catapult destiny into an unforeseen direction. This paper will examine one such pivotal moment, fashioned from the fictitious character known as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who represented the powerful working class women during World War II and how her personification has helped shape the future lives of women.

Even though Rosie the Riveter is an image frequently synonymous with the contemporary women’s movement, she was not designed to promote social change or improve the role of women in the workplace during World War II. In reality, she was promoted as the ideal female worker and was patriotic, confident, capable, and beautiful in a large propaganda campaign by the United States government. Since the war caused many men to answer the call to serve in the military, both at home and abroad, the United States was faced with the urgent challenge of recruiting women into the workforce. Rosie the Riveter was their solution to this problem.

At the start of World War II the American people had a sense of unity. Men chose to leave their jobs and families to join the front line, while women, for the first time, were leaving the home and taking over those jobs that their husbands left behind. In 1943, many magazines chose to paint a picture of women hard at work. These articles focused their stories on working women, and glamorized the untraditional jobs they held. They thought perhaps, that if they made these smaller, hard working jobs exciting, and noble, that more women would begin to join the work force. For this reason, the media created a fake working woman named Rosie the Riveter, and she was illustrated as a hero for American women. These efforts to pull

She was a product of an alliance between executives of advertising agencies and the government’s War Advertising Council. The advertising agencies lost many accounts when clients switched from consumer goods to war production, so it was to the companies’ advantage to cooperate with the government. Rosie, as depicted by artist Norman Rockwell, made her debut on the cover of the May 29, 1943 edition of the Saturday Evening Post (Risjord). Rockwell painted Rosie in denim overalls relaxing on a stool and eating a sandwich, apparently on her lunch break. She wears goggles on her forehead, holds a riveter in her lap, and rests her feet triumphantly on a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The American flag flies in the background as a symbol of her patriotism. She has muscular arms, yet remains feminine with a powder puff in her front pocket and a hint of lipstick. Rosie embodies strength, determination, confidence, and beauty. This image promised women everywhere that they too could serve their country with an enjoyable job and bring home a paycheck without sacrificing their

The film titled, “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter”, looks at the roles of women during and after World War II within the U.S. The film interviews five women who had experienced the World War II effects in the U.S, two who were Caucasian and three who were African American. These five women, who were among the millions of women recruited into skilled male-oriented jobs during World War II, shared insight into how women were treated, viewed and mainly controlled. Along with the interviews are clips from U.S. government propaganda films, news reports from the media, March of Time films, and newspaper stories, all depicting how women are to take "the men’s" places to keep up with industrial production, while reassured that their

The morning of December 7, 1942 is when the role of Rosie the Riveter all began. The surprise attack caused a devastating loss of lives and the destruction of several U.S. warships and airplanes. That is when President Roosevelt made the courageous decision and called the United States to war. With American men enlisting in the war effort, the work force instantaneously diminished. Then, the question was brought up, “Who would “man” the assembly lines in the factories to produce the necessities for war?” With a shortage of manpower, through the factory doors flooded an army of womanpower. Women from all around the area were ready to take the responsibilities of the factory duties that the men had left behind.

Prior to WWII, American women would typically stay home. They cooked and cleaned, but all this soon changed. Once the U.S. officially entered World War II on December 7, 1941, following Pearl Harbor, many men were sent to fight. Since men were the main workforce, there was a lack of employees to complete the jobs left behind. Soon, however, these vacant spots would be replenished by a female workforce. Companies sent out propaganda in an attempt to convince women to work in previously “male” jobs. One such propaganda was “Rosie the Riveter”. Eventually, the amount of women working increased from 27% to 37%, and sixty-five percent of the aircraft industry was made up of women, by 1943. (History.com, American Women in World War II).Now, women not only worked at home, but on the battlefield as well. Approximately 350,000 women enrolled in the Armed Forces, and 100,00 became WACS(Women’s Army Corps). Nevertheless, these women at work, on the battlefield or at home, were not paid the same amount of money as the men who previously worked in these jobs. (History.com, American Women in World War II).

During the year 1942, most of the world was occupied with World War II; for the US, it was a period of hardship, unity, sacrifice, and pain. Men were selected to go fight while women were encouraged with the “Rosie the Riveter” poster to work in areas they were not familiar with. About six million women were motivated from it and worked the jobs men usually took and jobs that contributed to helping the men who were fighting; however, women were still responsible for their daily house work.

Rosie the Riveter was a metaphoric figure used to represent the strength, dirty jobs, and work women provided for the war effort. Penny Colman states “Rosie the Riveter was supposedly based on Rose Bonavita, a riveter in the United States.”

Relevancy Material: While most people have seen at least one of her iconic posters, many people do not know her name, how she came about, how she truly helped inspire women for change. A figure, whether fictional or real, that can make that big of an impact should be seen for all their glory, not just a piece of it.

America is the land of opportunity. It is a place of rebirth, hope, and freedom. However, it was not always like that for women. Many times in history women were oppressed, belittled, and deprived of the opportunity to learn and work in their desired profession. Instead, their life was confined to the home and family. While this was a noble role, many females felt that they were being restricted and therefore desired more independence. In America, women started to break the mold in 1848 and continued to push for social, political, educational, and career freedom. By the 1920s, women had experienced significant “liberation”, as they were then allowed to vote, hold public office, gain a higher education, obtain new jobs, drastically change

The second source i reference in my investigation is book written by Maureen Honey, “Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda during World War 2”. This is a secondary source because it was published after the war time in 1984. This document exists to tell us about all the events leading to the creation of a very symbolic figure, Rosie the Riveter. She creates it to explain how women who entered the workforce during this time were predominantly middle class housewives. The author chose to write it as a book because she has researched the issue and studied it for many years and wanted to inform the public on what she has found. Doing this in a book form is more informing. This document is trying to show that women were powerful

These cartoonists include Rose O’Neill, Grace Drayton, and Jackie Ormes. Rose O’Neill (25 June 1874 – 6 April 1944), became the first American woman cartoonist with the publication of her first cartoon; "The Old Subscriber Calls" in Truth magazine on September 19, 1896. O’Neil would later achieve notoriety with her creation of the “Kewpies”. The “Kewpies” were adorable, plump childlike characters “with a topknot head that solved all kinds of problems in humorous ways”.

The Gibson Girl was a series of sketches drawn by a famous artist. The name of this artist was Charles Dana Gibson. The Gibson Girls were a sketch that changed the outlook on women during the 1900s. The Gibson Girl was created to show the rosiest aspect of society. This meaning that Gibson wanted to show the way he approved of society, a time in which a woman's name would only show up three times in a paper. These times concluded of when she was born, when she got married, and when she died. Gibson however hated the thought of women being bought for marriage especially to an old guy, he wanted these things to happen naturally.The idea of Gibson didn’t just stick with women either, there is a Gibson man as well. Although that is a