Was Rosie the Riveter a Real Person?

She can be found everywhere, from posters to t-shirts to coffee mugs: clad in blue coveralls, hair wrapped in a red-and-white bandana, glaring determinedly as she rolls up her sleeve, flexes her bicep, and declares: “We can do it!” Since her introduction during the Second World War, the figure of Rosie the Riveter has become a feminist icon, a potent symbol not only of the thousands of women who flooded into munitions factories and other non-traditional jobs in support of the war effort, but of limitless capabilities of all women. But how did this 80-year-old propaganda character become the iconic figure we know and love today? Was Rosie the Riveter ever an actual person, or just the product of some artist’s imagination, no more real than the scowling, finger-pointing figure of Uncle Sam? Well, as everl, the answer is complicated, but fascinating. The entry of the United States into the Second World War in December 1941 saw the induction of over 3 million men into the U.S. armed forces, severely depleting the ranks of industrial workers needed to produce tanks, ships, aircraft and other war materiel. To make up for this shortfall, the United States Government turned, as it had during the First World War, to a huge, largely untapped pool of labour: women. The impact of this policy on the American economy was staggering. In 1940, women made up 13% of the labour force; by 1945, this figure had risen to nearly 37%. The combination of military mobilization and the entry of some 2 million women into the economy also accomplished what nearly a decade of Depression-era New Deal social programs could not: dropping unemployment from 6% to nearly zero. Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Producer: Samuel Avila