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'Rosie the Riveter' has died at 86 yrs old

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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 08:17 PM
Original message
'Rosie the Riveter' has died at 86 yrs old
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20101229/NEWS01/312290008/Lansing-s-Geraldine-Doyle-inspiration-behind-Rosie-the-Riveter-dies

LANSING -- Her face became synonymous with women's empowerment, and her death is the passing of an era.

Geraldine Doyle of Lansing, whose face became the inspiration behind the iconic World War II image of "Rosie the Riveter," has died, according to her family. A memorial service is planned for 4 p.m., Jan. 8 at Tiffany Funeral Home, 3232 W. Saginaw St.

" 'Rosie the Riveter' is the image of an independent woman who is control of her own destiny," said Gladys Beckwith, former director of the Michigan Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame. "She was a gracious, beautiful woman. Her death is the end of an era, and we need to take note of that. We need to respect what she stood for."

Doyle was 86.

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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 08:21 PM
Response to Original message
1. My own dear Mom was a "Rosie."
Edited on Wed Dec-29-10 08:27 PM by blondeatlast
She built USAAF planes in Oklahoma. I hope they get to meet; the "Rosies" changed the USA forever.
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Alameda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 08:29 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. Mine too, but Navy Planes in Alameda, CA.
She was able to get into the wings of airplanes to rivet them. She passed away a year ago at 85. She was proud of her service. It probably was the highlight of her life. I think it went down hill from there. Many of those women learned to be independent during the war, only to be shown "their place" after their services were no longer needed.
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:13 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Those frustrated "Rosies" paved the way for the feminist movement--
I remember my mom asserting herself before I knew there was such a thing. God help ANYONE who referred to her as "Mrs. John atLast!"

She wasn't real thrilled with "Mrs. Mary atLast" either, but she wasn't quite so pissed about that (yes those were my m&d's actual names!).
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Raine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:31 PM
Response to Reply #1
8. My aunt did welding on ships during WWII
she was one tough gal, did all sorts of things that women didn't usually do. I still miss her. she died in 95. :-( My aunt was a real role model to me independant, tough and strong but still gentle and kind.
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More_liberal_than_mo Donating Member (192 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:36 PM
Response to Reply #1
9. My Aunt was a Rosie too!
She was a quality control engineer when she was 20 at the B-29 repair facility in Mobile, AL. The shot-up planes were rebuild there and she flew on-board with 4 others during shake down flights after repairs were completed to test their air-worthiness. After WWII she worked as a telephone operator for Bell South working her way up to a management position retiring in 1989. She had 65 male engineers working under her at the time of her retirement.
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tammywammy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:23 PM
Response to Reply #1
29. My grandmother was a "Rosie"
The interesting part, is she worked in the DFW area at an airplane manufacturer. My mom and I work in the same vicinity but at a different company. My grandmother wasn't from the DFW area either, she moved up to Dallas for the work.
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femmocrat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:37 PM
Response to Reply #1
30. So was mine. She was so proud of her service.
I don't recall where she worked. It was mentioned at her eulogy. She passed away three years ago.

She was a home-maker when we children were growing up, then got her GED and even attended college in her 50s. She was an amazing woman like so many of the Greatest Generation.
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Flubadubya Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-30-10 07:37 PM
Response to Reply #1
35. My Mom was a "Rosie" too...
She tested ammunition at the Red River Proving Ground near Texarkana. She told of how she smashed her finger in a large piece of artillery and lost her fingernail. She worked at the plant while my Dad was in France and England during the War.
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Motown_Johnny Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 08:26 PM
Response to Original message
2. and Willow Run was just closed about 10 days ago, weird
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Bozita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:20 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. The Charlie LeDuff piece says Rosie is Rosie Will Monroe
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/willow-run-and-the-story-of-general-motors

Willow Run and the Story of General Motors
Off the Chain with Charlie LeDuff

Updated: Thursday, 23 Dec 2010, 3:47 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 23 Dec 2010, 2:56 PM EST

Charlie LeDuff, Fox 2 News

YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, MI - A short history of General Motors: The company filed bankruptcy last year and was split in two. The good assets were funneled into The New GM. I am told that company is doing well. It traded this week at $34 a share.

Then there is the Bad GM, the part peeled away from the company like a snake’s skin. Its irrelevant factories boarded up. Its machinery sold off and shipped overseas. Meanwhile, the American towns and the people those factories once employed are left to themselves.

Bad GM stock was selling for 8 cents a share this week.

I went to a Bad GM town -- Ypsilanti Township -- where on Thursday they closed the doors of the Willow Run plant forever.

Play the video to hear from some of the former plant workers>

Willow Run was one of the most important factories of them all, a place that actually made the American Empire possible.

Completed in 1941 and stretching over five million acres, the plant belonged to Ford Motor Co. and it was the place where they made the B-24 Liberator bombers that helped win World War II.

Rosie the Riveter -– the iconic wartime working woman dressed in denim and a headscarf and flexing her muscle -– worked here. So did 42,000 others.

For the record, her real name was Rosie Will Monroe. They even made a folk song about her. ( http://www.archive.org/details/RosieTheRiveter )


In 1953, GM bought the grounds and cranked out Chevrolets and 82 million transmissions that drove the world.

More than 14,000 people worked here during the 70’s and 1,400 before the Dow’s collapse in 2008.

And after Thursday quitting time, there was no one.

more...
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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:15 PM
Response to Reply #7
26. There were many "Rosies".. the one who just died was the model for the iconic poster
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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 08:31 PM
Response to Original message
4. Rest in Power, Rosie nt
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xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:09 PM
Response to Original message
5. May Peace be with her family and friends. Nt
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Brickbat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:38 PM
Response to Original message
10. Rockwell's or Miller's?
Rockwell's being the original Rosie.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:38 PM
Response to Original message
11. Rest easy, "Rosie."
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Hawkeye-X Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:40 PM
Response to Original message
12. Obligatory image
Edited on Wed Dec-29-10 10:06 PM by Hawkeye-X
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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:43 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. your link is broken.. here's a pic
Edited on Wed Dec-29-10 09:44 PM by SoCalDem
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pipoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. Actually, I believe this is Rosie the Riveter
Edited on Wed Dec-29-10 09:55 PM by pipoman


Edit..Apparently the name came from a song and several artists published their renditions of her..this one is Rockwell's of coarse..
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Raine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:53 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. They show the one above though in the article
maybe it's the same gal in different poses??? :shrug:
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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. The blue-ish one is the Rockwell
Maybe they are the same person..just different interpretations
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pipoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:56 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. I edited my post
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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. This is the link the article in the paper showed
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pipoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #16
19. I edited my post
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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:00 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. Rockwell was 2nd
Posters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter
Westinghouse Poster. "In 1942, Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller was hired by the Westinghouse Company’s War Production Coordinating Committee to create a series of posters for the war effort. One of these posters became the famous “We Can Do It!” image — an image that in later years would also become “Rosie the Riveter,” though not intended at its creation. Miller based his “We Can Do It!” poster on a United Press photograph taken of Michigan factory worker Geraldine Doyle. Doyle died December 29, 2010 at the age of 86. <21>Its intent was to help recruit women to join the work force. At the time of the poster’s release the name “Rosie” was not associated with the image. The poster – one of many in Miller’s Westinghouse series – was not initially seen much beyond one Midwest Westinghouse factory where it was displayed for two weeks in February 1942. It was only later, around the 1970s and 1980s, that the Miller poster was rediscovered and became famous as 'Rosie The Riveter.'" <22>

Saturday Evening Post. Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" received mass distribution on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. Rockewell's illustration features a brawny woman named 'Rosie' taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her boot a copy of Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf.
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pipoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. Seems to me that would make Rockwell's
the first since Miller's wasn't intended to be Rosie or even known until 30-40 years after the fact.
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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:06 PM
Response to Reply #21
23. potato-potahto I think both are nice
:)
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pipoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:22 PM
Response to Reply #23
28. Agreed
I do find it interesting that a google image search is mostly Millers, the more attractive, feminine caricature, considering the late discovery of it.
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:05 PM
Response to Reply #20
22. I'd never seen the Rockwell before--love it!
He had a knack for capturing expressins; there's something just wonderful in hers, but I can't identify what it is.

It just IS.
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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:07 PM
Response to Reply #22
25. I had never seen it either.. It's more caricature-ish
and obviously more political:)
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pipoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:18 PM
Response to Reply #22
27. I own one of the original Post magazines with the Rosie cover
it has became very collectible. At some point it became a popular image in the GLBT movement.
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nostalgicaboutmyfutr Donating Member (991 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-30-10 05:00 AM
Response to Reply #14
31. is that a halo i see? Didn't see that before...eom
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Hawkeye-X Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-29-10 10:07 PM
Response to Reply #13
24. I meant to fix that.. thanks SoCalDem
Twice as good :)
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JCMach1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-30-10 06:42 AM
Response to Original message
32. My wife's grandmother built planes in Tulsa, OK
literally was a riveter during WWII
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-30-10 07:25 PM
Response to Reply #32
33. My mom did as well--wonder if they knew each other? nt
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JCMach1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 12:32 AM
Response to Reply #33
36. Small world... she died a few year back in Cleveland, OK
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-30-10 07:37 PM
Response to Original message
34. RIP!
:-(
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