Welcome to the Richmond Marina and the Rosie the Riveter Memorial. Historically much of the Richmond area waterfront has been commercial and industrial. In World War II, this included the building and launching of 747 Liberty and Victory ships for the war effort. Blacks and women played a big role in that production effort.
The Rosie the Riveter Memorial celebrates their contribution to Richmond and our country. It's designed to look like the skeleton of a ship under construction. It sits exactly where one of the four shipyards operating in the 1940's launched finished ships from.
This part of the memorial represents the hull of a ship under construction and has pictures and words recorded from the women who actually worked on the ships. Many of these women worked as welders, which is where the name "Rosie the Riveter" came from (even though welding and riveting are different as far as I know).*
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* Well-known historian and man-about-town Theodore Ritzko has a somewhat different analysis of the origin of the phrase "Rosie the
Riveter," and has kindly granted permission to post it here:
Dear Sue,
Upon viewing
your Rosie the Riveter site I think I can answer the metaphysical
question posed by your presentation. If you would peruse your memory of
old slap stick silent movies you will remember that there was always
that bit where some one was walking around the steel frame of a tall
building being erected and men would be throwing red hot rivets to each
other and using hammers and air hammers to fasten the framework
together. The scene always ends with the comedian catching a hot rivet
down the back of the pants and continuing on with his quest. This was
how all ships, buildings and Steam locomotives were built until welding
became feasible on a large scale.
As any fool can
see, this is a job that no woman would ever do. Can you see yourself
standing on a scaffold 300 feet in the air trying to catch a One pound
piece of red hot steel somebody is whipping at your head. Then to have
to pick up a 100 pound air hammer and mash the thing flat. Noooo. This
was clearly a job for the Blacks. I believe this is a case of the
Womens' movement hijacking accomplishments of the Black Race for their
own "let's feel good about ourselves" movement.
The only
reasonable explanation for the Rosie the Riveter moniker Is that it
originated with a black man named Roosevelt and was later handed over to
the welders by the propagandists.
Thank you for your time.
Ted For anyone inclined to take my brother-in-law seriously, please read the following actual explanation of the term "Rosie the Riveter" from Netizen Dan King, who has kindly given me permission to reproduce his answer here: Ma'am,
Just a quick note on your urban
exploration site, (which I enjoyed very much, by the way) Contrary to
Ted's assertion in the Rosie the Riveter piece that women co-opted the
name "Rosie" from a black man named Roosevelt, the story is actually
quite simple. One of the first industries that women worked in during
the war was aircraft manufacturing. In airplanes, small rivets are
used (known as "pop-rivets") which are very light and inserted with a
small hand held tool. Women were assigned to these jobs for several
reasons, including the fact that they tended to have smaller hands,
allowing them access to smaller spaces, and that the rivet tool was
very light, requiring no special strength to operate. A poster was
made to build morale for the war effort, illustrating a woman working
on an airplane. There is some debate about whether or not her name
was Rosie or Rosario, but the term came from this instance.
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