ROSIE THE RIVETER

Untitled Slide

• American women entered the workforce during WWII
• Between 1940-1945 the percentage went up from 27% to 37%
• nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home
• Rosie the Riveter became perhaps the most iconic image of working women
• aimed at recruiting female workers for the munitions industry

Untitled Slide

• More than 310,000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943
• making up 65 percent of the industry’s total workforce
• The munitions industry also heavily recruited women workers
• strong, bandanna-clad Rosie became one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history
• the most iconic image of working women in the World War II era.

Untitled Slide

• campaign stressed the patriotic need for women to enter the work force
• factory work and other home front jobs, some 350,000 women joined the Armed Services
• General George Marshall supported the idea of introducing a women’s service branch into the Army
• May 1942, Congress instituted the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps
• By 1945, there were more than 100,000 WACs and 6,000 female officers