Rosie the Riveter and Women in the Workforce

As the U.S. entered the war in 1941, the need for manufacturing workers spiked due to the large decrease in the male population. America needed a way to maintain and even increase its production levels during wartime while a large amount of males went off to war. The War Manpower Commission was founded by President Roosevelt in 1942 with the purpose of balancing labor requirements to maintain and even increase production in the US. They worked to recruit more women to work in areas that contributed to the war effort.

Rosie the Riveter was part of a campaign whose purpose was to recruit more females into the manufacturing industry. She was a fictional propaganda character who represented the women who contributed to the work force in order to help during World War II. Although the origin of her character is still disputed, most believe that she was created based off of a worker named Naomi Parker Fraley. The drawing that is most widely recognized as Rosie the Riveter today was created by J. Howard in 1942, although it was only titled "We Can Do It!" In 1943 a song by the title of "Rosie the Riveter" written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb was released, and the drawing was published on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, solidifying the character of Rosie in American history. Following her creation, the amount of women working payed jobs outside the home spiked from 26% to 36%. In 1943, women in the workforce was up to 63% from 1% in previous years. More and more women began working in aircraft and munitions industries, which were previously considered male jobs. This challenged the common notion of the time period that women were unable to perform jobs that were generally male dominated.

One major example of the effect occurred in Mobile, Alabama. About 90'000 workers came to the city to work in the war factories, either one of the two shipyards or the aluminum factory, known as the ALCOA factory. This factory alone produced about 34% of the entire country's aluminum, which was essential to the production of planes. Although there were still men working in factories, women were essential to productivity.

Although women returned home to their original work after the war, the effects still carried on. People realized that women were more than capable to perform the same jobs, and over the next decades, seeing women in the workforce became more and more common. 

Sources:
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/wwii-women.html
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/rosie-the-riveter
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rosie-the-Riveter
https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/211.html