The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb.

They began to work heavy construction machinery, taking roles in lumber and steel mills as well as physical labor including unloading freight, building airships, making munitions, and much more.

In 1944, when victory seemed assured for the Allied Forces, government-sponsored propaganda changed by urging women back to working in the home.

Later, many women returned to traditional work such as clerical or administration positions, despite their reluctance to re-enter the lower-paying fields.

[15] The term "Rosie the Riveter" was first used in 1942 in a song of the same name written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb.

The song was recorded by numerous artists, including the popular big band leader Kay Kyser, and it became a national hit.

[17] The song portrays "Rosie" as a tireless assembly line worker, who earned a "Production E" doing her part to help the American war effort.

[31] In 1942, just between the months of January and July, the estimates of the proportion of jobs that would be "acceptable" for women was raised by employers from 29 to 85%.

[citation needed] It has been said that it was the process of whites working alongside blacks during the time that encouraged a breaking down of social barriers and a healthy recognition of diversity.

A third group has emphasized how the long-range significance of the changes brought about by the war provided the foundation for the contemporary woman's movement.

[34] Leila J. Rupp, in her study of World War II, wrote "For the first time, the working woman dominated the public image.

[34] The "Rosies" and the generations that followed them knew that working in the factories was in fact a possibility for women, even though they did not reenter the job market in such large proportions again until the 1970s.

[37] According to Penny Colman's Rosie the Riveter, there was also, very briefly, a "Wendy the Welder" based on Janet Doyle, a worker at the Kaiser Richmond Liberty Shipyards in California.

[38]: 68 In the 1960s, Hollywood actress Jane Withers gained fame as "Josephine the Plumber", a character in a long-running and popular series of television commercials for "Comet" cleansing powder that lasted into the 1970s.

In 2010, singer Pink paid tribute to Rosie by dressing as her for a portion of the music video for the song "Raise Your Glass".

[40] She inspires Rosie Revere, the young subject of the book, to continue striving to be a great engineer despite early failures.

[42] Other recent cultural references include a "Big Daddy" enemy type called "Rosie" in the video game BioShock,[43] armed with a rivet gun.

In the video game Fallout 3 there are billboards featuring "Rosies" assembling atom bombs while drinking Nuka-Cola.

[44] In 2024, singer Katy Perry paid tribute to Rosie by dressing as her for a portion of the music video for the song "Woman's World".

The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter by Connie Field is a 65-minute documentary from 1980 that tells the story of women's entrance into "men's work" during WWII.

Plain and Simple, was founded to encourage cities to pick a project that "Rosies" can do with younger generations, in order to educate young people about women's roles in World War II, and to involve the "Rosies", many of whom have become isolated as they have gotten older, in community projects.

[54] More recent evidence indicates that the formerly misidentified photo is actually of war worker Naomi Parker (later Fraley) taken at Alameda Naval Air Station in California.

[59][60][61][62] Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" received mass distribution on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943.

Rockwell's illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her penny loafer a copy of Adolf Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf.

[64] Rockwell, America's best-known popular illustrator of the day, based the pose of his 'Rosie' on that of Michelangelo's 1509 painting Prophet Isaiah from the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

[69] In June 2009 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, acquired Norman Rockwell's iconic Rosie the Riveter painting for its permanent collection from a private collector.