One of the original women who are thought to have inspired Rosie the Riveter has died at the age of 95.
At 19, Rosalind P. Walter, from New York, was one of many women to pitch in during World War II, working on an assembly line as a riveter on Corsair fighter planes in Connecticut.
She and women like her became the inspiration for the 1942 song ‘Rosie the Riveter’ and the subsequent ‘We Can Do It!’ poster produced by J. Howard Miller.
Iconic: One of the original women who are thought to have inspired Rosie the Riveter has died at the age of 95
Riveting: At 19, Rosalind P. Walter was one of many women to pitch in during World War II, working on an assembly line as a riveter on Corsair fighter planes in Connecticut
According to the New York Times, Rosalind — whose friends actually called her Roz — was born on June 24, 1924 and grew up privileged on Long Island, New York.
She attended the upper-class Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut.
When the WWII effort called for women to take up jobs previously held by men, the then 19-year-old Rosalind got to work, taking a night shift working on fighter planes at the Vought Aircraft Company plant in Connecticut.
While she was working there, newspaper columnist Igor Cassini profiled her in his Cholly Knickerbocker column — which reportedly caught the attention of songwriters John Jacob Loeb and Redd Evans.
Loeb and Evans wrote the 1942 song ‘Rosie the Riveter,’ which began: ‘All the day long whether rain or shine / she’s a part of the assembly line /She’s making history, /working for victory — / Rosie, brrrrr, the Riveter.’
Charitable: After the war, she was a major donor to PBS and WNET in New York
While it’s been widely reported that Loeb and Evans got the idea from the Cassini’s story about Rosalind, music historian Robert Lissauer has a different recollection.
‘They wanted to write a song about women who were working for the war effort for the country,’ Lissauer, a business partner of Loeb’s, said, according to the Washington Post.
‘So they just made up the name “Rosie the Riveter.” You pick a name for the alliteration and you go ahead and write it.’
That song, recorded by the Four Vagabonds, went on to inspired several Rosie the Riveter posters and magazine covers, including Norman Rockwell’s painting and the iconic ‘We Can Do It!’ poster.
Whether Rosalind directly inspired it or not, she wasn’t done being the face of the Rosie the Riveter idea.
History lesson: During WWII, most men of working age were shipped overseas and women took over the essential jobs that they left behind such as welding (pictured)
Joining in: Women had to step up to work in the factories that produced what the men needed, and the Rosie the Riveter character was created to recruit them
On July 17, 1943, King Features Syndicate writer Alice Hughes profiled Rosalind as well, calling her ‘a dark-tressed society doll who has just finished a year of hard work as a night-shift welder at the Sikorsky aircraft plant at Bridgeport, Conn.’
After the war, Rosalind worked as a nurse’s aide at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
Se married Henry S. Thompson, a lieutenant with the Naval Reserve, and had a son named Henry.
After they divorced in the 1950s, she remarried, this time to Henry Glendon Walter Jr. in 1956.
As an adult, she was a generous philanthropist, donating to PBS and WNET in New York, to which she was the largest individual supporter.
WNET’s senior director for major gifts, Allison Cox, told the New York Times that Rosalind valued public television so much because of what it taught her. Because of the war, Rosalind didn’t get a chance to attend Smith or Vassar College, so she turned to public TV to learn more.
Ladies: Mae said the men were celebrated when they arrived home, but women lost their jobs and their role was forgotten
Amazing: Rosalind (not pictured) a night shift working on fighter planes at the Vought Aircraft Company plant in Connecticut
‘She cared deeply about the public being informed and felt that public television and media is the best way to accomplish this,’ Fox said.
She and her second husband also donated to the American Museum of Natural History, the Pierpont Morgan Library, Long Island University, the college scholarship program of the United States Tennis Association and the North Shore Wildlife Sanctuary on Long Island.
She is survived by her son, two grandchildren, four step-grandchildren, and several step-great-grandchildren.
Rosalind, however, isn’t the only woman who has been called an ‘original’ Rosie the Riveter.
One is Naomi Parker Fraley, who worked in a Navy machine shop and died in January 2018 at the age of 96.
There’s also 93-year-old Mae Krier, who was 17 when she moved from her home in North Dakota to Seattle, Washington in 1943, when she took a job at the Boeing Company.
According to NBC, she underwent two weeks of training in which she was taught how to buffer a rivet, and was then put to work in the factory.
Another riveter! 93-year-old Mae Krier, was 17 when she moved from her home in North Dakota to Seattle, Washington in 1943, when she took a job at the Boeing Company
In 1944, she and other women built 5 Grand, the Boeing Company’s 5,000th B-17 plane since the war began. They each got to paint their names on the plane and push it on the tarmac.
‘When the war took place, the men went to war and so did the women. They went in the trenches, but we went in the aircraft factories and the shipyards. We did whatever had to be done in order to win the war,’ she said.
On National Rosie the Riveter Day, March 21, in 2018, Mae spoke to Harry Connick Jr. on his show about being one of the real-life versions of the iconic character.
When Harry asked her if she realized at the time that the Rosie the Riveter image would become so iconic, Mae demurred.
‘It was just the job we had to do. We didn’t think of rewards,’ she said. ‘The bad part is when the war was over, Rosie got no credit at all.
‘Like I said, the men come home to parades and flying flags and Rosie came home with a pink slip, and it just wasn’t fair. We weren’t in the trenches but we built everything the men needed.’