Rosie the Riveter in Long Beach

Gerrie Schipske

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780738558141
• eBook ISBN: 9781439636336
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

During World War II, an unprecedented number of women
took jobs at aircraft plants, shipyards, munitions factories, and other concerns across the nation to produce material essential to winning the war. Affectionately and collectively called Rosie the Riveter after a popular 1943 song, thousands of these women came to the U.S. Armyfinanced Douglas Aircraft Plant in Long Beach, the largest wartime plane manufacturer, to help produce an astonishing number of the aircraft used in the war. They riveted,
welded, assembled, and installed, doing man-sized jobs, making attack bombers, other war birds, and cargo transports. They trained at Long Beach City Schools and worked 8- and 10-hour shifts in a windowless, bomb-proof plant. Their children attended Long Beach Day Nursery, and their households ran on rations and victory gardens. When the men came home after the war ended, most of these resilient women lost their jobs.

Four

ROSIE BUILDS AIRPLANES IN LONG BEACH

“ROSIE” BUILDS AIRPLANES. In 1939, there were only 48,638 aircraft workers nationwide. By 1943, that number exploded to 2,102,000. The plants operated by Douglas Aircraft produced 16 percent of all the airplanes used in World War II. They were able to do so because of the high production rate of their thousands of men and women who worked six and seven days a week, sometimes 10 to 12 hours per day. At its peak, more than 46 percent of Douglas’s workers were women. Pictured here, Kathyrn Polinare (left) and Vivian King work together to assemble a plane at the Long Beach plant. (Library of Congress.)

WORKING SIDE BY SIDE. Women worked side by side with the men in the plant. Most men were drafted or enlisted in military service, leaving older men to work on the home front. Males with special expertise needed in the aircraft factory were given an exemption from military service and were allowed to keep their civilian job during the war. Some men tried to quit their jobs and join the military, but they could be arrested by the FBI and returned to their jobs if the plant needed their skills. (Copyright The Boeing Company.)

USING THE “BUCK ROGERS” GUN. The rivet gun was referred to as the “Buck Rogers” gun because of its similarity in looks to the gun used by the popular 1928 science fiction character. The rivet gun weighed three and a half pounds and would vibrate forcefully and loudly as it pushed the rivet into the hole. In most cases, one woman would insert the rivet and another woman would be on the inside of the airframe or fuselage using a bucking bar to flatten the end of the rivet while tightening it. The riveter pictured below is working high above the ground on a scaffold so that she can rivet the stabilizer section of the plane. A worker is inside flattening the rivet. Planes were held together with as many as 150,000 rivets. (Both, Copyright The Boeing Company.)

REAL RIVETERS AND MODELS. Being a riveter on the aircraft factory floor meant getting dirty, sweaty, and messy, as shown in the photograph on the left. The Office of War Information brought models to the Long Beach Douglas Aircraft Plant and posed them for hundreds of photographs that would be distributed to the news media or used on posters to recruit women workers. Even though the picture below shows Grace Delong, an actual worker, she is depicted as a well-dressed, clean riveter who apparently forgot to wear her gloves while using the rivet gun on an already-finished section of the airframe. (Both, Copyright The Boeing Company.)

WORKING IN PAIRS. Women worked in pairs, in teams, and singly in the plant. Many women formed friendships with each other as the employment of women in the aircraft industries increased by over 125 percent. The divorce rate also soared as women became financially independent due to their war work. (Both, Copyright The Boeing Company.)

ALL-WOMEN TEAMS. Women sometimes worked in teams comprised of only women, but more often they would work alongside men performing the same jobs. Women were given rest breaks, which brought complaints from some men. Other men complained that they would not ask their wives or sisters to do the type of work done by women at the plant. Douglas Aircraft petitioned the government to allow rest periods for both sexes. (Both, Copyright The Boeing Company.)

ASSEMBLING PARTS. Planes were so large that they had to be completed in sections and then assembled together. Teams of workers built one section of the plane at a time, known as “pre-completes.” This technique, adapted from the automobile industry, eliminated a great deal of time in the production process. The women on the right are working on an electrical assembly. The woman pictured below is inside the nose of a bomber and is also working on electrical wires. The white block on the photograph was pla...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• One - CREATING AN ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY IN LONG BEACH
• Two - RECRUITING WOMEN WORKERS
• Three - ROSIE COMES TO LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
• Four - ROSIE BUILDS AIRPLANES IN LONG BEACH
• Five - A WOMAN’S WORK IS NEVER DONE
• Six - OTHER LONG BEACH ROSIES
• Seven - CELEBRATING ROSIE THE RIVETER
• RESOURCES