Liberty Ships, Closed Doors · Episode 5 of 13 · 35 min
Rosie and the Real Women
The war pulled nearly twenty million women into the workforce, into welding Liberty ship hulls and riveting bombers, but on unequal terms, with lower pay for identical work, Black women shut out of better jobs, and everyone assuming it was temporary. The episode separates the real Rosies from the iconography and shows how it ended when factories closed and jobs went to returning servicemen.
Who's who
- J. Howard MillerArtist of the 'We Can Do It!' Westinghouse poster
- Norman Rockwell+2 more episodesPainter of the 1943 Rosie the Riveter magazine cover
Where it happens
- Willow Run, Michigan+1 more episodeBomber plant where women earned 85 cents an hour to men's $1.20
- Los Angeles, California+13 more episodesAircraft plants employing women on wing lines
Timeline
- 1940Women are about 27 percent of the workforce
- 1942The song 'Rosie the Riveter' appears
- 1943Women are about 65 percent of the aircraft workforce; Rockwell's cover runs
- 1945Female labor force peaks near 19 million
- September 1945About 2.5 million workers laid off, women disproportionately
Still debated
The 'We Can Do It!' poster was a little-seen internal Westinghouse morale poster that became an icon only decades later. Whether women were pushed out or chose to leave is mixed, and the link from Rosie to later feminism is real but not direct.
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