(gentle music) - [Announcer] Wake up, Miss America.

Wake up, Mrs.

America.

Friendly planes may not always cast their moving shadow on you.

- [Jamie] With her flexed arm, a red and white polka dot bandana, dark blue coveralls, and a worker's badge.

- Rosie the Riveter represents any woman who worked in any job, in any factory, in any city for any amount of time during World War II.

She is embodied by the poster, "We Can Do It," but she was any woman who did it during the war in the factories or keeping her communities alive.

- [Jamie] Claire Dahl is a resident Rosie expert at the Michigan Flight Museum in Belleville, home of Willow Run History, and the Women Answer the Call exhibit, about 25 miles from downtown Detroit.

- Back those trucks up, get those parts in, and then on the assembly line, two assembly lines.

It was done, it was miraculous, it was an experiment, complete assembly here.

The military knew it needed to start looking for the future.

- [Jamie] The government had already started converting plants across the country to transform into a war economy.

- To make a great big bomber plant, which was planned the biggest in the world, they needed a name, they needed money, and they needed land, and they were able to get all three from Henry Ford.

- [Jamie] World War II began in 1939 when Hitler's Army invaded Germany's European neighbors.

The United States did not formally enter the war until 1941.

- December 7th is the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Philippines, and Guam, and Wake, and Midway Island.

December 8th, we declared war on Germany.

December 11th, Germany and Italy declared war on us.

You know, we declared war on Japan, of course, but then Germany and Italy because of alliances.

And then five months later, Rosie is needed, because so many men are in the service.

- [Jamie] Rosie became the face of what's considered to be the most successful government public relations campaign in American history.

- [Announcer] They wore a new badge, a badge not only of courage, but of achievement.

These women who had never worked outside their own homes before.

- The women had to be convinced to do it.

If you can use a sewing machine, you can use a riveting gun.

If you can iron your clothes, that's a drill press.

If you've ever folded your laundry, you can fold a parachute, and the women responded, because they knew they had to do it, and they knew they could.

And so when we talk about that time period, we were touching the souls of the grandmothers, the mothers, the wives, the sisters, the daughters, the girlfriends, wanting to make a difference, wanting to bring those soldiers home, wanting to help end that war, wanting to travel, get off the farm.

- [Jamie] An estimated six million women stepped up to fill critical roles in countless ways.

- You've got nurses, you've got teachers.

We had the best childcare we've ever had in this country.

The Lanham Act, for the first time ever, bring your kids to work.

We need you to work, and we'll give you flex time, and we'll give you daycare in your little cities wherever.

So you name it, any job that needed to be done was done at Willow Run.

- [Jamie] Some of these real Rosies are still alive today.

In 2024, the United States government collectively honored each and every one of them with a congressional gold medal, including 101-year-old Agnes McKenna from Carson City.

The Rosie the Riveter Association of Michigan recognized her and continues to highlight Rosie's past and present.

- [Jeannette] She worked at AC Spark Plug in Ionia, Michigan during the war, and she assembled spark floats on a machine.

And then she worked at REO Motors in Lansing.

She waterproofed wires and instruments in the dash on the military trucks that were built there and were sent overseas.

How did you feel about the war?

- I felt bad for all the soldiers that had to go leave and go.

That was what I was more concerned about than myself.

- [Jamie] 103-year-old Vera Gobeski was just 18 when the war started, with a baby at home when her husband went to fight.

She moved back in with her parents in Bay City and went to work at the Dow Chemical Company, which famously developed magnesium bricks to build smaller, faster bombers and bomb casings.

- We were helping.

Yeah, we figured we were helping the war effort by working here, which we were, and they had a real need for the small bombers at that time.

- [Jeannette] What does it feel like to be a Rosie?

- Oh, well, I'm just surprised that they waited so long to give people recognition.

(laughs) No, I think it's wonderful.

See the pictures on the wall?

I tell everybody to look and look at them.

- [Jamie] Not every Rosie was working in a factory.

Betty Sharrer, now 103, was a young phone operator when the war broke out.

- I worked at Bell Telephone Company in downtown Detroit and was dating Bob Sharrer.

We were teenagers in high school.

December of '41 was Pearl Harbor.

- [Jamie] The pair married in 1943, and left Michigan for Camp Swift in Texas.

- In a very short time, he became assistant commanding officer in charge of 3,000 German prisoners of war and 900 Russian prisoners of war.

I was told that there were nearly a half a million German prisoners of war in this country during World War II on American soil, and nobody knows it.

And the Library of Congress contacted me a while back and said, "This whole prisoner of war endeavor was the best kept secret of World War II, that very few people knew about it."

- [Jamie] At the camp, American soldiers discovered many of these young prisoners, some still teenagers, had unique talents like painting, wood carving, and tinkering with technology.

Betty says her husband decided to get them the tools to do it, believing if Americans showed the prisoners respect, they would return the favor.

- So as a result, that's why that camp was peaceful, because Bob had taught them, and they learned a whole new side of America that they might not have known otherwise.

- [Jamie] Decades later, Betty still has some of the gifts given to her and her husband from the prisoners of war.

- Rosie the Riveter invited me to be part of their group.

I said, "I never worked in the factory.

I never did anything that Rosie the Riveter was known for."

And somebody said, "The fact that I worked with the German prisoners and also I worked for the telephone company and I put calls through."

- [Jamie] The contributions of these Rosies and millions more helped change the world.

- It's a nice little song.

You want me to sing it?

- [Interviewer] Absolutely.

♪ All the day long, whether rain or shine ♪ ♪ She's a part of the assembly line ♪ ♪ She's making history, working for victory ♪ ♪ Rosie, (buzzes lips) the riveter ♪ ♪ Rosie's got a boyfriend named Charlie ♪ ♪ Charlie, he's a Marine ♪ ♪ Rosie is protecting Charlie ♪ ♪ Workin' overtime on the riveting machine ♪ ♪ When they gave her a production E, right there ♪ ♪ She was as proud as a girl could be ♪ ♪ Oh, there's something true about ♪ ♪ Red, white, and blue about ♪ ♪ Rosie, (buzzes lips) the riveter ♪ (Claire laughs)