Bitchy History - 2.6 - Will the Real Rosie Please Stand Up？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Bitchy History, the irreverent history podcast whose host has been basically that one meme with the dog in the room on fire saying this is fine for the last couple of weeks, so please don't judge my lack of episodes, or I'll cry.

00:00:13.320 welcome back to bitchy history i know i know it's been a bit i have no excuse well i do have an

00:00:33.660 excuse but it would sound like i was trying to make you feel sorry for me so let's just skip all

00:00:37.360 of that and let the past be the past the important thing is that the show is back and today's episode

00:00:42.480 is going to be a lot of fun. I didn't, strictly speaking, actually do anything for Halloween this

00:00:48.160 year. I was invited to a mead tasting party a couple of nights before Halloween and to another

00:00:53.060 Halloween party at a local gay bar that I occasionally frequent. I did go to the mead

00:00:57.640 tasting party. Shout out to Katie and her husband for a fantastic night. But the other party started

00:01:02.700 at 10 p.m. and I'm 33 and that just wasn't gonna happen. But I did dress up for Halloween and this

00:01:09.900 year I decided on a nice simple historical costume, Rosie the Riveter. She's an iconic

00:01:15.300 part of Americana. We all know the poster, Rosie and her polka dot bandana proudly declaring

00:01:20.500 we can do it. Except that's not Rosie the Riveter. So let's take a little tour through the history

00:01:27.800 of an American icon and find out who she really was. Now the history can be a little bit sketchy,

00:01:33.520 mostly because we don't always have exact dates of publication for some items, but I'm going to

00:01:38.020 try to piece this timeline together as best I can with what I have. So let's wind the clocks back

00:01:43.300 to 1941. In Toronto. Yes, we're talking about Canada while discussing the history of an American

00:01:49.620 icon. Get over it. We live in a globalized world, guys. It's 1941, and a 19-year-old woman named

00:01:56.720 Veronica Foster is starting her job at the John Inglis Company Limited in Toronto. The John

00:02:02.280 Inglis Company built the Brin machine gun that was favored by Canadian and British soldiers alike

00:02:07.140 during the second world war oh right we actually need to wind the clocks back one more time to

00:02:12.740 september of 1939 when canada joined the war on the side of the allies because canada entered

00:02:19.100 into the war a full two years and change before america got its act together and did anything 0.94

00:02:24.020 more than lend lease and send military aid to the allies back-to-back world war champs my ass

00:02:29.920 over 10 000 americans crossed the border into canada to join the canadian air force and army

00:02:35.380 prior to America joining the war in 1941.

00:02:38.680 Let's listen to a little bit of history about that from a May 2023 NBC report.

00:02:43.660 We all mark the attack on Pearl Harbor as the start of this country's involvement in World War II,

00:02:49.440 but there is a growing effort to spotlight the thousands of Americans

00:02:53.000 who didn't wait to join the fight against Hitler in Europe.

00:02:55.980 They jumped in early to join Canada and the British forces.

00:03:00.460 In a story you will only see on News 4,

00:03:02.260 Northern Virginia Bureau Chief Julie Carey introduces us to a Stafford veteran

00:03:06.340 who's made recognizing these service members his new mission.

00:03:12.920 Retired Marine pilot Michael Parkin says he grew up in a family of aviators

00:03:17.140 who often gathered to watch old World War II movies.

00:03:20.260 That's when he first heard his father mention a cousin, Alfred Parkin,

00:03:24.340 who flew British bombers.

00:03:26.860 And we'd kind of give him the side eye and say,

00:03:29.420 British bomber?

00:03:30.300 So your cousin was British? No, he was from New Jersey.

00:03:34.100 Well, then how'd he end up a British bomber? Well, he was in the Canadian Air Force.

00:03:38.220 Flash forward years later, flying his own dangerous missions,

00:03:41.560 Michael Parkin found himself thinking more and more about his dad's cousin.

00:03:45.220 So when his service abroad ended, he started digging, researching,

00:03:49.720 getting records on Alfred from Canada's Department of National Defense.

00:03:53.120 And they sent me his records, which showed that he had gone missing on November 25th, 1942.

00:04:01.060 And that started me on a journey that really from 2004 until today has been on and off, but it's never really stopped.

00:04:09.520 Parkin discovered early in World War II, Canada needed pilots and found ways to secretly recruit willing Americans like Alfred Parkin.

00:04:17.580 They volunteered for World War II at a time this country was still on the sidelines.

00:04:22.580 They want to make a difference. They believe in causes. And think of what a cause it was

00:04:27.880 when Adolf Hitler started to murder people and roll through countries. 0.53

00:04:31.380 In November 1941, Alfred Parkin got his wings in Canada and headed to England to fly for the

00:04:37.360 British Royal Air Force. Aboard his Lancaster bomber, two other Americans along with Brits

00:04:42.480 and Canadians. Their bombing raids dangerous and daring. This map shows the hometowns of Alfred 0.89

00:04:48.760 and hundreds of other Americans killed or missing while serving for Canada or Great Britain.

00:04:53.880 Michael Parkin now focused on getting them the recognition they deserve.

00:04:58.480 And these people haven't had their story told. Their story's been erased. It needs to be told.

00:05:04.220 Joining the cause, Representative Abigail Spanberger, who's co-sponsoring this bill

00:05:08.740 to award the Congressional Gold Medal to all Americans who joined the Canadian and British

00:05:13.620 armed forces during World War II. If Congress says we recognize what these people did, this was

00:05:19.480 important, that really elevates this. Parkin's highest hope? That this country would also embark

00:05:25.980 in efforts to find these Americans, like Alfred Parkin, missing in action to include them in the

00:05:32.420 record. Well, these people were fighting America's war. They just fought it first. They should be on

00:05:37.640 that same list. When the roster of missing Americans is red, their name should be red.

00:05:42.760 Reporting for News 4, I'm Julie Carey.

00:05:45.500 And it's estimated that more than 8,600 Americans served with Canada and Great Britain in World War II.

00:05:51.720 Michael Parkin's efforts were first reported by the Freelance Star newspaper in Fredericksburg.

00:05:56.940 The video that goes along with this audio is in the substack for this episode, by the way.

00:06:01.520 So please take a look at that so you can see some of the really fascinating visuals that go with it.

00:06:06.480 But back to Veronica Foster.

00:06:07.940 Just as American women would take up jobs on the manufacturing lines once the men left for the front, Canadian women were doing the same thing.

00:06:16.200 Canada had labor shortages in the wake of joining the war as well, and in May of 1941, Foster was one of thousands of women who were working in the John Inglis Company making Bren light machine guns.

00:06:27.220 Veronica would be remembered in Canadian history as Ronnie the Bren gun girl.

00:06:31.800 The National Film Board discovered her and made her the poster girl of their new campaign

00:06:35.920 that was meant to encourage women to go to work for the war effort.

00:06:39.220 The National Film Board created a series of photographs of Foster doing her work at the factory,

00:06:44.080 but also enjoying herself at the Glen Eagle Country Club, going to dinner parties,

00:06:48.560 dancing the jitterbug with co-workers, and playing baseball.

00:06:51.900 Before we close the door on Ronnie's chapter of this story, I'll tell you what happened to her after the war.

00:06:57.480 She became a vocalist for the Canadian band

00:06:59.600 Mark Kenny and His Western Gentlemen.

00:07:01.860 There, she would meet George, the band's trombonist,

00:07:04.380 and fall in love.

00:07:05.460 She'd pursue a career in modeling 0.62

00:07:06.820 before finally settling down to marry George.

00:07:09.700 George died in 1963,

00:07:11.520 but Veronica would raise her family and live until 2000,

00:07:14.840 when Canada would put her face on a stamp

00:07:16.880 to honor her contribution to the war effort.

00:07:19.260 Here's a clip of her singing with the Mark Kenny band.

00:07:24.380 And now Veronica Foster with the familiar strains

00:07:26.960 of the sweet ballad, True.

00:07:30.540 True, true to you only

00:07:35.180 Forever and ever

00:07:39.020 I'm true

00:07:41.600 Living to love you

00:07:44.760 Shall be my endeavor

00:07:47.900 All I own is yours alone

00:07:53.740 To share

00:07:55.640 dear. Please handle my heart with care, dear. Now, I bring up Veronica for one very important

00:08:10.480 reason. The most well-known and circulated image of Ronnie, the Bryn gun girl, seems to be the one

00:08:16.060 in which she's pictured with her hair tied up in a headscarf, wearing a worker's uniform, and smoking

00:08:21.200 beside a Bren machine gun. Not an exact match to the iconic We Can Do It poster from 1943,

00:08:27.540 but it's a close one for certain. And it's important to note that the woman in the 1943

00:08:32.660 We Can Do It poster was not given a name. Moreover, she wasn't a general propaganda poster for the

00:08:38.820 United States. Rather, the poster was produced in 1943 by J. Howard Miller for the Westinghouse

00:08:44.700 Electric Company as an inspirational poster to boost the morale of female employees.

00:08:49.780 We Can Do It was a popular slogan at the time,

00:08:52.540 possibly inspired by the song We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again,

00:08:56.440 which was written right after Pearl Harbor in 1941.

00:09:03.360 December 7th, 1941, our land of freedom was defied.

00:09:11.120 December 8, 1941

00:09:14.780 Uncle Sam replied

00:09:18.700 We did it before and we can do it again

00:09:23.500 And we will do it again

00:09:25.580 We've got a heck of a job to do

00:09:28.080 But you can bet that we'll see it through

00:09:30.120 We did it before and we can do it again

00:09:33.600 The We Can Do It poster that we all think of these days

00:09:36.560 wouldn't become appropriated by the feminist movement until the 1980s

00:09:40.180 but we'll talk about how and why that happened in a minute. 0.98

00:09:43.300 For now, let's talk about where the name Rosie the Riveter came from.

00:09:47.600 In 1942, lyricists Red Evans and John Jacob Loeb would publish the words and music to a song titled Rosie the Riveter,

00:09:55.000 and as far as I can tell, they were the first to use the name.

00:09:58.500 The Paramount Music Corporation released the music book for the song,

00:10:01.820 and it would go on to be recorded by several different musical groups, like Kay Kaiser and The Four Vagabonds.

00:10:07.120 The Four Vagabonds version is my favorite.

00:10:10.180 All the day long, while the rain has shined, she's a part of the assembly line.

00:10:25.160 She's making history, working for victory.

00:10:27.640 Rosie, the riveter, keeps a sharp look out for sabotage, sitting up there on the fuselage. 0.84

00:10:34.320 That little friend can do more than a male can do. 1.00

00:10:37.080 Rosie, the riveter.

00:10:39.240 The song is said to have been inspired by Rosalind Palmer,

00:11:01.400 later Rosalind Palmer Walter,

00:11:02.960 who was recruited at the age of 19

00:11:05.140 as an assembly line worker at the Vought Aircraft Company.

00:11:08.440 She worked the night shift driving rivets into the metal bodies of Corsair fighter planes at a plant in Connecticut,

00:11:13.880 a job that had almost always been reserved for men prior to this.

00:11:18.240 Rosalind was from a very wealthy family and went on to be a major philanthropist and one of PBS's principal benefactors.

00:11:24.840 So you go, Rosie. Good for you.

00:11:26.940 She died in March of 2020 at the age of 95.

00:11:29.980 If you grew up watching PBS like I did, you've probably seen her name before.

00:11:34.080 with significant foundation support from the Rosalind P. Walter Foundation and viewers like

00:11:39.700 you. This week, Rosalind P. Walter, one of the most generous and devoted supporters of PBS

00:11:44.620 programming, including the NewsHour or NewsHour Weekend, died at age 95. Her name has been a

00:11:50.640 constant on the credits of programs like American Masters, which she helped launch,

00:11:54.960 to Great Performances, to Ken and Rick Burns documentaries, and dozens of other programs

00:11:59.940 since the mid-1970s.

00:12:02.200 Rosalyn P. Walter served as a trustee at WNET

00:12:05.020 for more than 30 years and became the station's most

00:12:07.740 generous individual supporter in its history.

00:12:10.920 But most people don't know that Rosalyn P. Walter

00:12:13.380 was also the inspiration for a 1942 hit song,

00:12:17.520 Rosie the Riveter, and the posters honoring the women

00:12:21.020 who worked in U.S. factories during World War II.

00:12:24.200 She's making history, working for victory,

00:12:26.660 Rosie the Riveter.

00:12:29.200 In the early years of World War II, Roz worked as a Riveter on the night shift at a Long Island aircraft plant making the Corsair fighter planes.

00:12:38.240 They had to find out whether women could earn the same pay by doing the same job, so they timed me after I'd learned them all.

00:12:47.540 And I broke all the men's records they had to pay, the women, the same amount.

00:12:55.440 She was never known as Rosie, always Roz, but the song was born.

00:13:00.840 Rosalyn P. Walter was born into a privileged, wealthy family.

00:13:04.260 Her father was president and chairman of the pharmaceutical company E.R. Squibb & Sons,

00:13:08.320 and her mother was a well-known educator, poet, and writer.

00:13:11.820 But her parents refused to allow Rosalyn to attend college.

00:13:15.580 She once said that she chose public television as the focus of her philanthropy because she

00:13:19.960 She, quote, wanted all Americans, whether they were rich or poor, well-educated or not so well-educated, to have equal access to news and knowledge and the arts.

00:13:30.100 Her legacy is ours to carry on.

00:13:32.280 Thank you, Rosalyn P. Walter.

00:13:34.060 But the cover art for the song book for Rosie the Riveter isn't the only place Rosie appeared in popular culture.

00:13:39.540 A few months after the song began making the rounds, artist Norman Rockwell would create the cover for the May 29th, 1943 edition of the Saturday Evening Post.

00:13:48.600 He would ask a 19-year-old Mary Doyle Keefe, who was in fact a phone operator, not a riveter, to pose for the painting.

00:13:55.820 According to the Norman Rockwell Museum website, Rockwell painted his Rosie as a larger woman than Keefe actually was,

00:14:02.820 and he later phoned to apologize to her for that.

00:14:05.820 I suppose it might have made Keefe a little self-conscious, but honestly, the image is iconic.

00:14:10.980 It features a brawny, muscular, red-haired woman in overalls, 0.63

00:14:14.520 taking a break from riveting to eat her lunch with her riveting tools slung across her lap. 1.00

00:14:19.160 Her lunchbox has her name, Rosie, written across the front. 0.79

00:14:22.540 Her nose is turned up defiantly, and her feet, well, her feet are using a copy of Mein Kampf for a footstool.

00:14:29.120 Rockwell based the pose in his painting to match Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel painting of the Prophet Isaiah.

00:14:35.240 The post-cover image proved to be hugely popular,

00:14:38.400 and the magazine ended up loaning it to the U.S. Treasury Department for the duration of the war for use in war bond drives.

00:14:44.520 And in 1944, Rosie would make her way to film.

00:14:48.140 Rose Will Monroe, a riveter at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Michigan,

00:14:52.260 became another Rosie when actor Walter Pidgeon discovered her that year

00:14:56.240 and tapped her to appear in a film to promote war bonds.

00:14:59.620 As for what happened to Rose Will Monroe,

00:15:01.820 at the conclusion of the war, Monroe left the factory and worked as a cab driver,

00:15:05.880 operated a beauty shop, and launched a construction company known as Rose Builders,

00:15:10.260 specializing in luxury homes.

00:15:12.480 During the war, Monroe had aspired to become a pilot and work transporting aircraft parts around the country, 1.00

00:15:17.720 most likely as a member of the Women's Air Force Service Pilots, or WASP.

00:15:22.420 Unfortunately, her status as a single mother caused her to be passed over for the training.

00:15:27.160 Eventually, Monroe was able to achieve her dream of flying when she was in her 50s, though,

00:15:31.700 joining her local aeronautics club as its only female member.

00:15:35.520 In April of 1944, Republic Pictures released a full-length movie titled Rosie the Riveter,

00:15:41.280 set in a California defense plant and starring actress John Frazee as Rosalind Rosie Warren.

00:15:47.800 The film's not particularly easy to come by. I guess for some reason archiving a B-movie musical

00:15:53.100 from 1944 wasn't seen as all that important, but it is floating around on the internet in a few

00:15:58.360 places. There's a link to one clip from it in the, you know, it's in Substack. That's where all the

00:16:03.860 links always are. So there's a lot of Rosie the Riveters in this period of time. Why did the one

00:16:09.980 version that was never named Rosie become the icon we all associate with the name today.

00:16:16.340 The Westinghouse poster was not associated with any of the women nicknamed Rosie who came forward

00:16:21.500 to promote women working for war production on the home front. According to the poster itself,

00:16:26.260 it was only displayed from February 15th to February 28th in the Westinghouse factories,

00:16:31.800 after which it disappeared from history for about four decades. Honestly, the entire thing

00:16:37.720 is Norman Rockwell's fault, hoist by his own petard as Hamlet says. The answer to this whole

00:16:43.580 question can be given in a single word, copyright. All of Rockwell's paintings were copyrighted and

00:16:50.240 while I love copyright, it did mean that while the value of that one single painting increased

00:16:55.260 by leaps and bounds, it last sold for nearly five million dollars in 2002, it did lead to it losing

00:17:01.920 much of its cultural cachet. On the other hand, Westinghouse Electric and J. Howard Miller apparently

00:17:08.200 weren't that worried about copywriting what amounted to one of those shoot for the moon,

00:17:12.980 even if you miss you'll land among the stars inspirational posters that you see in every

00:17:17.700 guidance counselor office in every high school in America, which made it a lot easier to reproduce

00:17:23.680 and parody the poster. In 1982, the We Can Do It poster was reproduced in a Washington Post

00:17:30.260 magazine article about posters in the National Archives collection, and once it was rediscovered,

00:17:35.780 it became an icon for the second and third wave feminist movement. Coincidentally, 1982 was also

00:17:41.580 the year that the Equal Rights Amendment fell three states short of ratification. Thank you so much,

00:17:47.180 Phyllis Schlafly. So thanks to a zealous defense of copyright by Rockwell and his estate, the

00:17:52.500 Westinghouse poster is the one that appears everywhere today and not Rockwell's. The Washington

00:17:57.460 Post once called it the most overexposed souvenir item available in Washington, DC. It's on mugs,

00:18:04.540 t-shirts, keychains, pens, and even on people's bodies as tattoos, which might seem a bit

00:18:10.120 excessive, but can a woman who's planning a Taylor Swift lyric tattoo really throw stones?

00:18:15.860 So who was the real Rosie the Riveter? Is it Ronnie the Bren Gunn girl? Rosalind P. Walter?

00:18:21.700 Mary Doyle Keith? Rose Bill Monroe? I think the point is, and I'm pretty sure most of these ladies 0.93

00:18:27.440 would agree with me, that Rosie wasn't any one woman.

00:18:31.120 She was every woman.

00:18:32.580 She was an icon that stood for every woman who joined the war effort, 0.99

00:18:35.980 and she's an icon that stands for every woman who demands equal rights and freedom today.

00:18:41.040 And on that note, I'd like to end the show today by raising a toast to Ohio voters

00:18:45.260 who showed up and made the right to access abortion care part of the state's constitution.

00:18:52.060 Abortion is health care.

00:18:57.440 And abortion access is the law of the land in Ohio. 0.98

00:19:03.700 Good for you, Ohio. Good for you. 1.00

00:19:06.280 She's making history, working for victory, Rosie. 0.99

00:19:10.280 Thank you for tuning in to hear me bitch about history again.

00:19:14.200 The show is transitioning to releasing on Thursdays,

00:19:16.860 partly because I just really want my Sundays to be extremely lazy days

00:19:20.940 where I do nothing but play video games and zone out,

00:19:23.680 and partly because I read some questionable demographic research

00:19:26.960 that said Thursdays at 8 a.m. Eastern are the best time to release a podcast.

00:19:31.400 Who knows if they're right, but I'm going to give it a shot.

00:19:33.880 Which means that the next episode will be out on November 16th,

00:19:37.100 and we'll finally be getting to that Satanic Panic episode that I promised you guys in October.

00:19:42.340 And then for Thanksgiving, I'll be re-releasing the Truth About the First Thanksgiving episode

00:19:46.380 from much earlier this year on the 23rd.

00:19:49.140 That one will probably make everyone at your family Thanksgiving very, very uncomfortable,

00:19:53.840 bowl, so make sure to play it for them while you get the turkey basted and let me know what happens.

00:19:59.140 I like stirring the pot, and it's just me and my parents for Thanksgiving this year,

00:20:02.820 so I have to live vicariously through your Thanksgiving drama. And as a reminder,

00:20:07.380 please share the podcast with everyone you know, and remember to subscribe to the podcast

00:20:11.460 substack for additional content. Have a great week, and I'll see you back here next Thursday.

00:20:23.840 Thank you.

Bitchy History - November 09, 2023

2.6 - Will the Real Rosie Please Stand Up？

Episode Stats

Transcript