March 5th – Rosalind Walter

Today is March 5th, we are remembering the late Rosalind Walter.

Rosalind P. Walter, the original “Rosie the Riveter”, passed away yesterday, March 4th, in her home in New York.

During WWII, Rosalind worked assembling F4U marine gull-winged fighter airplanes. At the time, while the men fought in the war, women took up jobs helping make supplies to help the effort. Most of the jobs were seen as “men’s work” but these fierce women took up the jobs and showed that anything men could do, women could too. Rosalind was prolific at her job, noted for setting records in her speed, and she worked to get equal pay for her and her co-workers.

Rosalind is believed to have inspired the original idea of “Rosie the Riveter”. In 1942, Rosalind helped inspire a morale-boosting song that was published to show the amazing things women were doing while the men were off at war.

Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb wrote the poem that was published in a newspaper before the Four Vagabonds converted the poem into a song, “Rosie the Riveter”. This poem came before the well-known photo of a muscular woman with the polka dot bandana.

Rosalind spent her time after the war, fighting for equal pay and helping fund a number of positive programs, such as PBS, American Museum of National History, and Long Island University.

The idea of “Rosie the Riveter” still symbolizes the feminism fight today and the loss of Rosalind Walter is a heartbreaking one. She helped start a rise for equality at a time where our country needed it most.

Thank you, Rosaline Walter.

Sources: Wikipedia, Fox News, NY Times

I’ll be writing about a different badass woman every day of March so check out the master post here.

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