The Rosie the Riveter Movement

You can create your own Rosie the Riveter Community

Some simple ways you can educate with Rosies in the last phase of their lives:

• Interview a Rosie AND save the interview for scholars and future generations
• Help Rosies present in classrooms, public lectures, parades, and civic gatherings
• Photograph Rosies and their memorabilia, copy their photos as young women
• Get local media to cover your Rosie(s), archive these with their interviews
• Perform Rosie music or create your own, get children to perform for Rosies
• Name a school room, public building or a street “Rosie the Riveter”
• Add your work with a Rosie on Social Network sites
• Submit your work to Thanks! Plain and Simple’s website, and/or your own site
• Create posters, banners and a manikin dresses as a Rosie, with Rosies’ help
• Help Rosies and others create art about Rosies (e.g. quilts) and display it
• Create a Rosie the Riveter park with the help of your Rosie(s)
• Create a book (e.g. a photographic book with text) with help from Rosies
• Create a faceted-glass (hand-blown) window designed to honor your Rosie(s)
• Write creative nonfiction (poetry, plays, stories)
• Get dance groups to do a Rosie routine
• Hold events that honor Rosies; get groups to invite Rosies to tell their stories
• Help teachers have what they need to teach accurately about Rosies
• Get your state Department of Education to put Rosie the Riveter in their curriculum
• Give local leaders talking points and ask them to speak publicly about Rosies
• Create your own project to honor your Rosie(s), and we’ll help you share it

Videos

Selected Materials on Rosie the Riveters by “Thanks!” and Others:

Documentary Film: We Pull Together: Rosie the Riveters, Then and Now. Executive Producer, Anne Montague. Producer, B.J. Gudmundsson. Supported, in part, by the West Virginia Humanities Council. Released June, 2011. Highly positive reviews. Emphasizes the women telling about war and work in their own voices.

Selected Stories told by Rosies (and their families)

• Braxton Citizens’ News. County Woman One of First to be featured in Rosie the Riveter Documentary. August 4, 2009
• Goldenseal Magazine. A Wartime Romance, by Kate Long, Spring, 2010
• Dominion Post. Veterans Day, Honoring, Remembering (story of Helen Shope, Rosie in Baltimore). Nov. 11, 2011, by Jim Bissett
• Sunday Gazette Mail. Riveting, a Wartime Rosie Shares Her Tail (about Mazie Mullins a riveter), by Sandy Wells. Dec. 27. 2009
• Calhoun Chronicle. Women Tell Rosie the Riveter Stories (stories of Ola Jarvis, Marilyn Beecher, Jean Miller), August 13, 2009
• Logan Banner. Logan County’s Own Rosie the Riveter, by Michael Browning. Nov. 11, 2009.
• Fayette Tribune. Fayette Rosie joining Celebration (profile of Mazie Mullins, Riveter), by Cheryl Keenan. Nov. 10, 2011
• West Virginia Public Radio, Rosie the Riveters Stories, Interview of Garnet Kozielec, a riveter in Michigan and California, by Beth Vorhees, August, 9, 2009
• West Virginia Public Television. “West Virginia “Rosies” Today,” stories by 10 Rosies, Marshall University, March, 2011
• West Virginia State Univ, Faculty Lecture Series, Zachary Brewster, Ph.D. and Garnet Kozielec. My Training and Work as a Riveter 67 Years after World War II. Institute, WV, October, 2010
• Thirty-Fourth Annual Appalachian Studies Conference, Proud to be a Riveter and a Miner’s Daughter, Gloria Farmer, facilitated by Zachary Brewster, Ph.D. and Anne Montague in symposium, Impact of Appalachian Rosie the Riveters on America, Past to Future. Richmond, KY, March 12, 2011
• Gazette-Mail. Thanks, Rosie: Airplane wing brings recognition to Elkview woman, by Whitney Burdette, June 6, 2010
• The Journal (Martinsburg). Local Journalist Supported War Effort as a Rosie the Riveter, by Jenni Vincent, Oct. 3, 2011.
• The Chronicle (Shepherdstown). Dot May: One of the Remaining Rosies, Kelly Cambrel, June 17, 2011
• Charleston Gazette. My Rosie stories enrich history, by Edie Lyons (a Rosie). July 21, 2010

Unpublished Manuscripts:

• Unpublished Manuscript used to orient Rosies to interviews. Montague, Anne. Mercy Howled on V. J. Day: When Mother Came Home from “The War Factory.” 2004.
• Unpublished Manuscript. Poems and Selected Memories of Our Rosies as they Recall, “We Pulled Together.” In-progress, 2011.
• Unpublished Letter. Then, Now and Forever. What it means to me, a Rosie, to be heard about work during the war. Unpublished Manuscript. 2010. Nancy Sipple, Rosies (died April 9, 2012).

Speeches Given to Rosies

• Embassies:
• Dierecx, Martine, Lt. Col., Belgian Army. Belgium Thanks You, American Rosies. Keynote speech, Shepherd Univ., Shepherdstown, WV, Nov. 2009.
• Janes, Annabelle, C., Major, British Army. The Impact of American Rosies for Britain During World War II. Keynote speech. West Virginia State Unviersity, Institute, WV, Nov. 20, 2010
• US Government:
• Shelly Moore Capito, US Congress. “We Can and We Will Remember,” May 26, 2012
• State Government:
• F. Raamie Barker, Senior Advisor to West Virginia Governor, Earl Ray Tomblin: “Churchill, Roosevelt and Rosies”, May 25, 2012
• Ceryl, Johns, Lt. Col (Ret’d), British Royal Navy: “Every World War II Plane Flying Was Made by Rosies,” Nov. 20, 2010
• Others:
• Ceryl John, Major, US Army: “The Wing Tells while It Keeps Secrets.” Charleston, WV April 23, 2011 (with wing from Corsair Airplane brought from South Carolina for Rosies).
• Anne Montague: “The West Virginia Model is Launched Today.” Brunswick, MD, Nov 6, 2011.

References:

• Bornstien, Anna 'Dolly' Gillan. Woman Welder/ Shipbuilder in World War II. Winnie the Welder History Project. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. February 16, 2005.
• Bourke-White, Margaret. "Women in Steel: They are Handling Tough Jobs in Heavy Industry." Life. August 9, 1943.
• Bowman, Constance. Slacks and Calluses - Our Summer in a Bomber Factory. Smithsonian Institution. Washington D.C. 1999.
• Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation. Delta Publishing, a Division of Random House, Inc. 2001.
• Cabanis, Helen. Woman Riveter in World War II. Rosie the Riveter Collection, Rose State College, Eastern Oklahoma Country Regional History Center. [Rosie the Riveter Collection, Rose State College] March 16, 2003.
• Campbell, D'Ann. Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1984.
• Carter, C. (1998). The use of journals to promote reflection. Action in Teacher Education, 11(4), 39-42
• Gluck, Sherna Berger. Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War, and Social Change. Twayne Publishers, Boston, MA, 1987.
• Gregory, Chester. Women in Defense Work during World War II: An Analysis of the Labor Problem and Women’s Rights. Exposition Press, New York, 1974.
• Hartmann, Susan M. The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s. Twayne Publishers, Boston, MA, 1982.
• Lanktree, Donnaleen, President American Rosie the Riveter Association,Personal conversations.
• Leatherman, Tom. Superintendent, Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park. Personal Conversations. 2009-2011.
• Montague, Anne. Critique of on-line article (Carnegie Library) “Hresko, Mary and Mary Vincher Shiner. Women Workers in World War II. May 21, 2001” after discussion with a “Rosie, Nancy Sipple. Unpublished manuscript. 2011
• Regis, Margaret. When Our Mothers Went to War: An Illustrated History of Women in World War II. Seattle: NavPublishing, 2008. ISBN 978-1-87732-05-0.
• "Rosie the Riveter" (Song). Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Paramount Music Corporation, 1942.
• Ware, Susan. Modern American Women A Documentary History.McGraw-Hill:2002.184
• Williams, Hershell Woodrow (“Woody”). Why we can hear Rosies talk about horrific battles. Personal conversations with Medal of Honor Recipient, Iowa Jima. 2006-2011
• Wise, Nancy Baker and Christy Wise. A Mouthful of Rivets: Women at Work in World War II. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994 . Comparing face to face, tutor led discussion and online discussion in the classroom
• Anderson, Karen. Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women During World War II. Berkley Books, New York: 2001.
• Campbell, D’Ann. Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era.Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 1984.
• Dabakis, Melissa. “Gendered Labor: Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter and the Discourses of Wartime Womanhood.” in Gender and American History Since 1890. ed. Barbara Melosh. Routledge, London and New York: 1993. p. 182-204.
• Gluck, Sherna Berger. Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War, and Social Change. Twayne Publishers, Boston, MA: 1987.
• Gregory, Chester. Women in Defense Work during World War II: An Analysis of the Labor Problem and Women’s Rights. Exposition Press, New York: 1974.
• Hartmann, Susan M. The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s. Twayne Publishers, Boston, MA: 1982.
• Honey, Maureen. Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II. University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO: 1999.
• Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda during World War II. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst: 1984.
• Rupp, Leila J. Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939-1945. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ: 1978.
• Yellin, Emily. Our Mother’s War: American Women at Home and at the Front during World War II . Free Press, New York: 2004.
• Smithsonian list Search for "Rosie the Riveter" in the search field (upper right)

Lesson Plans

6th Grade Lesson Plan

11th Grade Lesson plan

Historic Speeches

May 8, 2016 - Grafton, WV - Katherine Antolini, Ph.D.

August 11, 2013 - Washington, DC - Anne Montague

November 6, 2011 - Brunswick, MD - Anne Montague

November 20, 2010 - WV State University - Major Annabelle C. Janes (British Emissary)

November 7, 2009 - Shepherdstown, WV - Lt. Colonel Martine Diercx (Belgian Emissary)

Shelly Moore Capito, US Congress. “We Can and We Will Remember,” May 26, 2012

F. Raamie Barker, Senior Advisor to West Virginia Governor, Earl Ray Tomblin: “Churchill, Roosevelt and Rosies”, May 25, 2012

Ceryl, Johns, Lt. Col (Ret’d), British Royal Navy: “Every World War II Plane Flying Was Made by Rosies,” Nov. 20, 2010

Ceryl John, Major, US Army: “The Wing Tells while It Keeps Secrets.” Charleston, WV April 23, 2011 (with wing from Corsair Airplane brought from South Carolina for Rosies).

Please contact us if you’d like to request a copy.

Lecture Series

We are pleased to announce that Anne Montague is available for lectures on Rosie the Riveters and their impact on America past, present and future.

To schedule a speaking engagement, please call 304 / 776-4743. Depending on the details (location, date and time) of your request, it may be possible for "Thanks!" to include a living Rosie the Riveter in the event.