The Real Rosie the Riveter Was FIRED the Day the War Ended

America's most famous working woman was real. And the country fired her the second the war was won.

During World War II, about six million American women poured into factories to build planes, ships, and bombs. The female share of the workforce jumped from roughly 27 percent to nearly 37 percent. Posters called them all Rosie.

The face behind the polka-dot bandana was likely Naomi Parker Fraley, photographed at a California naval air station in 1942. For decades another woman got the credit. Naomi was only recognized shortly before she died in 2018, at 96.

But the propaganda had an expiration date. When the soldiers came home, the same government that recruited Rosie told her to leave. Within three months of the war ending, a quarter of women in factory jobs were gone.

By 1950, the female share of the workforce had slipped back toward pre-war levels. Rosie was never meant to stay. She was a wartime tool, quietly retired once she was no longer needed.

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