Rosie the Riveter facts for kids
Rosie the Riveter
Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States. She is often used as a symbol of feminism. In 1944 a movie called Rosie the Riveter was released. Rosie the Riveter became associated with a real woman called Rose Will Monroe. In 1997 the Rosie the Riveter Memorial Committee was started.
Rosie the Riveter
was the star of a campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for defense industries during World War II, and she became perhaps the most iconic image of working women. American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during the war, as widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home.
Rosies in the Workforce
While women during World War II worked in a variety of positions previously closed to them, the aviation industry saw the greatest increase in female workers.
More than 310,000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943, making up 65 percent of the industry’s total workforce (compared to just 1 percent in the pre-war years). The munitions industry also heavily recruited women workers, as illustrated by the U.S. government’s Rosie the Riveter propaganda campaign.
Based in small part on a real-life munitions worker, but primarily a fictitious character, the strong, bandanna-clad Rosie became one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history, and the most iconic image of working women in the World War II era.
Did you know? Though women who entered the workforce during World War II were crucial to the war effort, their pay continued to lag far behind their male counterparts: Female workers rarely earned more than 50 percent of male wages.
