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In "'Rosie the Riveter:' Real Women Workers in World War II," Library of Congress women's studies specialist Sheridan Harvey explores the evolution of "Rosie the Riveter" and discusses the lives of real women workers during World War II. |
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Says Harvey of Norman Rockwell's May 29, 1943, cover for the Saturday Evening Post: "Two weeks after his cover appeared on newsstands, the press picked up the story of a woman named Rose Hickey. She and her partner drove a record number of rivets into the wing of a TBM Avenger at a Tarrytown, New York, plant. Other women named Rose gained media attention before the end of the war. Rose Monroe, a riveter in Michigan, made a film about selling war bonds and then a commercial movie called Rosie the Riveter?. "Sybil Lewis, an African-American riveter for Lockheed Aircraft in Los Angeles, gives this description of riveting: "'The women worked in pairs. I was the riveter and this big, strong, white girl from a cotton farm in Arkansas worked as the bucker. The riveter used a gun to shoot rivets through the metal and fasten it together. The bucker used a bucking bar on the other side of the metal to smooth out the rivets. Bucking was harder than shooting rivets; it required more muscle. Riveting required more skill.'" |
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