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Rosie the riveter
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In movies,newspapers,
propaganda posters, photographs, and articles, the Rosie the Riveter campaign stressed the patriotic need for women to enter the workforce.
How it started
The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Images of women workers were widespread in the media as government posters, and commercial advertising was heavily used by the government to encourage women to volunteer for wartime service in factories.
Why she became an icon
Beginning in 1942, as an increasing number of American men were recruited for the war effort, women were needed to fill their positions in factories. ... Rosie the Riveter was part of this propaganda campaign and became the symbol of women in the workforce during World War II.
The real rosie
Unsung for seven decades, the real Rosie the Riveter was a California waitress named Naomi Parker Fraley. In 1942, 20-year-old Naomi Parker was working in a machine shop at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California, when a photographer snapped a shot of her on the job. In the photo, released through the Acme photo agency, she’s bent over an industrial machine, wearing a jumpsuit and sensible heels, with her hair tied back in a polka-dot bandana for safety. On January 20, 2018, less than two years after finally getting recognition as the woman in the photograph—thought to be the inspiration for the World War II-era poster girl “Rosie the Riveter”—Naomi Parker Fraley died at 96.
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