Rosie The Riveter Research Paper

More than six million women took employment outside of the home, and many of the women had never been paid for working. Rosie the Riveter was an iconic figure during the war she showed women a sense of independence by taking them from the household into the workforce. Adult women in Oklahoma frequently went to work in oil fields, gas wells and built airplanes or even worked at-large ship yards. During the war-time, the women were able to prove to America that ladies were just as physically strong as the men were and would do anything to support their country. Mothers would generally barter with family members or neighbors on whose turn it was to watch the children while at work. "Mothers being taken out of the home to work is where child delinquency began, children were not getting the love and the discipline they needed from their parents," said Sharla

As men had gone into war, many jobs needed workers. The largest single employer of women in 1918 was the munition factories due to the high demand for weapons. Though there was initial resistance to hiring women for what was seen as ‘men’s work’, in 1916 there was an introduction of conscription made need for women workers urgent. The government began coordinating the

Rosie the Riveter was a propaganda poster from World War Two. She was a fictional person and became the main figure of women empowerment. She is still largely known by Americans. As the U.S Department of Labor states, “Rosie the Riveter is still considered the most successful government advertising campaign in history”. This statement shows that Rosie was extremely popular and affective amongst the women and young girls of the country.

In movies, pictures, posters, newspapers, articles, and a painting by Norman Rockwell on the Saturday Evening Post Cover, Rosie the Riveter, encouraged women to start working. The campaign was a huge success as women entered the workforce in big numbers. Although, women were an important part of the war, they were not paid the same as their male partners. Women barely earned more than 50% of men’s pay. Though Rosie The Riveter was the poster girl, there were 11 Women Warrior icons in the World War II , even though there were many more these 11 women stood

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.

One aspect that had become popular was the use of women to work in factories; however, women had already been working in factories since the nineteenth century. What was such a major change was the drastic increase of female employees. In the span of the war, four million more females began working in factories for war production. The government utilizes this via propaganda saying, “more women at work, the sooner we win!” located in document 4, and other cartoons like Rosie the Riveter.

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 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.

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

Before the war, women in America had typical lives, and many were wives and mothers. America was brought into the war unexpectedly when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. Hundreds of thousands of men were drafted into the war, leaving the women behind. America lost a lot of valuable, hard-working men to fight, and they needed people to fill their positions. According to history.com’s article, “American Women in World War II”, it was then when Rosie the Riveter was created to recruit women to become part of the “work force” (“American Women in World War II”). Rosie the Riveter was a fictional character who motivated women across the U.S. to take jobs in different industries, many of which were previously all-male positions.

Most of us know of the famous poster of Rosie the Riveter. She made women all over the world think that they could be just like her. She was sexy and strong and had the words “We Can Do It!”, which were very empowering words. Rosie the Riveter was just one of many advertisements that were used during the war to get women to join the workforce. Advertising for women to get a war job was so common. Good lighting and unique posing, along with sexiness to intrigue women to join the work force was just one technique used. The pictures showed women working on planes, engines and other machinery. The pictures however were very misleading. They were of women wearing makeup, and jewelry and with their hair worn loosely so that it could get caught in machinery. These pictures were very misleading of the real work that women would be doing.[2] As part of recruiting efforts posters were put everywhere, however none of them portrayed women of color. They all were of young, beautiful, white women. The reason they say for white women is because they targeted women’s magazines that white women would read and news papers. They also made it seem like it was the woman’s patriotic duty to go to work.[3] Most people would think that something like marketing is a new thing however these slogans and posters are proof that they knew what to say to pull women in to the workforce. Some of the posters asked women to get

During World War II, many people moved in to new jobs for the war effort. This included women by the millions. “Rosie the Riveter” was a national symbol of women taking jobs in the industrial field while the men were away fighting the war. “She was fictional, but represented the ideal government worker, including being loyal, efficient, and patriotic”, (Bowles, 2011).

2) During the era of “Rosie the Riveter”, what gains did women make in the workforce? How did these women feel about themselves and their contributions? What did society as a whole think?

Gilderlehrman.org announced, “The number of working women rose from 14,600,000 in 1941 to 19,370,000 in 1944. In the later year, 37 percent of all adult women were in the labor force. At the peak of the industrial effort, women constituted 36 percent of the civilian work force.” ("The World War II Home Front"). The total population of women workers were growing majorly. Women were making movements across the country due to working in factories. More women actually enjoyed working in factories rather than their housewife job. More women started expanding their culture due to it. A major impact to women was Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter was a woman figure who was all over articles to encourage women of any age to step out of their comfort zone, and encouraged them to take a part in helping out with the war. Gilderlehrman.org states “But then the

For centuries women have been depicted as weak beings when compared to men. In the early days, women were not allowed to go to work because men did not think they had the same abilities as they did. The role of a woman was to stay in the house, cook, clean, and take care of the children. However, through the World War II propaganda poster exclaiming “We Can Do It!” featuring Rosie the Riveter, women were able to prove that they had the same abilities as men and began a revolution in the U.S. workforce.