Rosie the Riveter

[Gregory Matthews]

NOTE:  Information for this post came from an article written  By Don Vaughan, of North Carolina that was published in the December 2014 issue of MILITARY OFFICER: THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF MOAA, beginning on page 69.

 

Depending on our age, many of us older folk who lived during World War II, remember the tales about Rosie the Riveter.  She represented the women who left their homes, in a time when women seldom worked outside of home to replace the men who left their factory jobs to battle against the enemy.    In the popular parlance of the day, she worked in an aircraft factory riveting aircraft parts to the airframes.

 

Elinor Otto was one such, real life woman.  In 1942, she went to work or Rohr Aircraft as a riveter who earned the princely sum of 65 cents per hour.  But, in recognition of the quality of her work, she was later given a raise in pay to the sum of 68 cents per hour.  She continued to work in aircraft manufacturing until the end of WWII.

 

She later took a job at Douglas Aircraft, which later became known as Boeing Company, where she worked on C-17 aircraft.    Boeing plans to close that plant in 2015 and at that time Elinor Otto plans to retire.  As she had her 96th birthday last October, she has probably earned a change in pace. 

 

The name of the article is:  "Riveter to  Retire."

 

 

 

 

 

[CoAspen]

60 Minutes has done a story on her also, sometime back.