EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
A factory worker, rolled-up sleeves and a flexed bicep, head wrapped in a red-and-white bandana - this is the image of Rosie the Riveter. She, with her slogan, We Can Do It, represented the millions of civilian women who worked on the American homefront during World War II. Her name came from a song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROSIE THE RIVETER")
FOUR VAGABONDS: (Singing) All the day long, whether rain or shine, she's a part of the assembly line. She's making history, working for victory, Rosie the Riveter.
PERALTA: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans is celebrating the Rosies who are still living. Here's NPR's Debbie Elliott with the story.
(CHEERING)
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: A hero's welcome greets 18 women as they arrive at the National World War II Museum, adorned in the red-and-white polka-dot scarfs that are a signature of Rosie the Riveters.
(CHEERING)
JANE TUCKER: Debbie, I didn't know (ph) - I was wishing you were here.
ELLIOTT: They're here to be honored as Congressional Gold Medal recipients. But first, each Rosie gets a personal tour of the museum, starting in the home front exhibit.
TUCKER: I was showing - going to show her to - look at the women welders. Now, that's a familiar job right there.
ELLIOTT: Jane Tucker, now 97, left rural Lineville, Alabama, in 1943 with her mom and sister to work in a shipyard.
TUCKER: I worked in Savannah, Georgia, building Liberty ships, and I learned to become a welder when I was just 16. And it was all top secret. Loose lips will sink ships was one of the posters.
ELLIOTT: She was one of an estimated 5 million civilian women who worked in the defense industry and elsewhere while men were fighting overseas. Tucker says they were trailblazers, proving that women can succeed in the workforce.
TUCKER: We did men's jobs - like, I was a rod welder - that the men said we couldn't do. They said, oh, they're too emotional. They're too petty. They'll be sick a lot. They won't come to work, and they'll be too weak to do the heavy work. So we said we can do it.
ELLIOTT: I found out about this gathering of Rosies in New Orleans because of Jane Tucker.
TUCKER: To my niece (laughter), my niece Debbie Elliott.
ELLIOTT: Tucker has been working for years to preserve the stories of Rosies and how they changed the labor landscape. Kimberly Guise, senior curator at the National World War II Museum, says, after the war, these women were generally forced out of the workforce when service members returned home. Still, she says, the symbol endured.
KIMBERLY GUISE: Certainly, Rosie has come to stand for an image of empowerment with the women's movement as a symbol of strength and can-do spirit.
MARY MASCIANGELO: I feel proud at what I did for them. Proud.
ELLIOTT: That's Mary Masciangelo, who just turned 100. She's from Rochester, New York.
MASCIANGELO: I worked 1943 in an optical place, and I made pins for the parachutes.
ELLIOTT: She was 16 years old at the time. Erlinda Avila of Phoenix was just 15.
ERLINDA AVILA: I was a riveter, and I worked on the B-25 bombers.
ELLIOTT: It was hard work, she says.
AVILA: From inside the wings - that's where I used to work since I was little enough I could crawl in the wings.
ELLIOTT: Avila says she was motivated to serve when her brother was drafted and sent to Japan, so she went to the Army recruiter.
AVILA: I've come to enlist. I want to join the Army. Well, he said, first of all, he said, we don't take women. And I said, well, I'm not a woman. I'm a girl. He said, well, we don't take girls either.
ELLIOTT: Undeterred, she found work in the defense plant. It was freeing, she says, noting that members of her Navajo Tribe could not even vote at the time. Now, as she approaches her 101st birthday next month, Avila offers words of wisdom to young women today.
AVILA: Don't ever give up. You can do it. Believe in yourselves.
ELLIOTT: The Gary Sinise Foundation's Soaring Valor Program brought this group of Rosies to New Orleans to thank them, says foundation Vice President Cristin Kampsnider.
CRISTIN KAMPSNIDER: I think that oftentimes it's the soldiers who are really paid attention to, you know, and - as they should. And these women are often forgotten. And we're here to remind them that, like, we do not forget them and that they really are truly critical and wonderful, and what they did was very, very appreciated.
ELLIOTT: The foundation is working with the World War II Museum to collect oral histories of the Rosies for the archives here, including African American women.
SUSAN T KING: Weren't that many Black girls who did this anyhow. My name is Susan T. King. I was a riveter in World War II in Baltimore, Maryland.
ELLIOTT: She built small parts for planes, and says, even though Baltimore was a segregated city at the time, that changed in the aircraft factory.
KING: I think it was the first time in my life that we could go in a dining hall and eat with everybody because they could not segregate against us when we worked on the federal jobs.
ELLIOTT: King, now 100 years old, says it took years for her to realize the role she played in American history.
KING: We did this because we wanted to win the war. And I think as I grow older and history of America begins to be told, it's important.
KIDIDI AJANKU: She is a living legacy. We are so proud of her.
ELLIOTT: That's King's daughter, Kididi Ajanku. She's pleased to see her mother getting her just due while she's still living.
AJANKU: I think people break boundaries and make history every day just to survive - at least African Americans. Survival is doing that. So for my mother to be honored is just due. It's a long time in coming, and I am forever proud.
ELLIOTT: Indeed, the Rosies were treated like heroes when museum patrons realized who they were.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Well, God bless you.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We're very proud of you.
ELLIOTT: The women happily posed for pictures, muscles flexed in true Rosie form. It was a thrilling experience for Jane Tucker.
TUCKER: Awesome. We never did think we'd be stars when we were building ships (laughter). But look at this, and thanks to people who care about women and their freedom.
ELLIOTT: Tucker says she's proud, knowing Rosie's opened doors that had been closed to women before the war. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, New Orleans.
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