Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda During World War II

Honey examines the mechanics of first changing social values that make women working in primarily male jobs socially acceptable and then how the pre-war values are restored at war's end.The Rosie the Riveter campaign is so interesting because these values, which were first a barrier and then an open invitation for women to work outside the home, were changed over a very short period of time to meet the labor needs of war and then changed back just as overtly. This campaign is an excellent lesson in how social values hardly are cast immutably in stone or are somehow seen as unchangable because of religious, moral, or other social objections.Honey does an excellent job of describing the mechanics of this campaign. A lesson to anyone arguing that any social group should or should not be barred from any social activity.