It's a famous image--the red polka-dot scarf, the blue work shirt, the determined face, and of course that curled bicep. It's Rosie the Riveter. Here face and "We Can Do It!" message was the star of World War II propaganda campaigns. Rosie was a composite character: millions of American women spent years working in factories and shipyards producing equipment to be used in the War. They could 'do it.' In this interview SheilahKast speaks with one of the real 'Rosies.' Wilma Foster lives in Laurel and worked as a riveter at Fairchild Aircraft in Hagerstown during the early 1940s.
Foster's daughter Ann Marie Miller is the President of the Laurel chapter of the American Rosie the Riveter Association. She is known as a 'rosebud,' a woman who is a descendent of a Rosie. She also joins Sheilah Kast in studio.
The two women discuss finding other Rosies in Maryland, and even treat us to a song--the Rosie the Riveter song, of course.
You can see a PT-19, the type of plane that Wilma Foster worked on, at the Hagerstown Aviation Museum. The Museum's next event is May 4.