Rose will monroe biography

As her daughter remembered, the young Rose was a tomboy who proved to be handy with tools as well.
Www.motorcities.org › Story of the Week › 2020.
The history of Rosie the Riveter begins when Monroe became the nation's poster girl for women joining the labor force during World War II.

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Rose Will Monroe, 77, "Rosie the Riveter' star

Rose Will Monroe, who played "Rosie the Riveter," the nation's poster girl for women joining the work force during World War II, has died. She was 77.

Ms. Monroe, who died Saturday, was working as a riveter building B-29 and B-24 military airplanes at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Ypsilanti, Mich., when she was asked to star in a promotional film about the war effort. She was also featured in posters.

Her role became synonymous with thousands of women who took defense industry jobs, working factory positions usually held by men.

Unlike many "Rosies" who returned to the kitchen after the war, Ms. Monroe kept working. She drove a taxi, operated a beauty shop and started a construction company in Indiana called Rose Builders. It specialized in high-quality custom homes.

Ms. Monroe was born in Kentucky's Pulaski County and moved to Michigan during the war.

She is survived by two daughters, six sisters, nine grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

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By Bob Sadler, MotorCities Communications Manager
Images Courtesy of the Yankee Air Museum & Ann Arbor Hands On Museum
Published 3.25.2020

Rose Will Monroe

After last week’s Story of the Week was published featuring the story of “Rosie the Riveter,” some additional stories were brought to our attention from right here in the MotorCities National Heritage Area. Many women worked at the Willow Run aircraft factory operated by Ford Motor Company during World War II, and one of those women was an actual “Rosie the Riveter” – her name was Rose Will Monroe.

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Born in Kentucky, Monroe grew up in a family of nine children. As her daughter remembered, the young Rose was a tomboy who proved to be handy with tools as well. When her husband was killed in a car accident, she moved to Michigan with her two young children to take a job building B-24 bombers at Willow Run.

The production line at Willow Run (Yankee Air Museum)

When Monroe started work at Willow Run, the 332-acre facility employed 40,000 workers and was the largest manufacturing operat

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Rosie the Riveter

Cultural icon of the US during World War II

For other uses, see Rosie the Riveter (disambiguation).

Rosie the Riveter is an allegorical cultural icon in the United States who represents the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies.^[1]^[2] These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who joined the military. She is widely recognized in the "We Can Do It!" poster as a symbol of American feminism and women's economic advantage.^[3]Similar images of women war workers appeared in other countries such as Britain and Australia. The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Images of women workers were widespread in the media in formats such as government posters, and commercial advertising was heavily used by the government to encourage women to volunteer for wartime service in factories.^[4]Rosie the Riveter became the subject and title of a Hollywood film in 1944.