Saturday, March 8th is International Women’s Day, we had Briana Fiandt from The Richard I Bong Veterans Historical Center on today to tell some stories about local Rosie’s, here is some of the stories.
Who was Rosie the Riveter?
She was one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history. The campaign focused on the patriotic need for women to enter the workforce. Songs were written about her and in 1943 Norman Rockwell’s rendition of Rosie was published on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Rosie was sitting with a riveter in her lap and Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” under her feet. But the image that everyone thinks of is one created by Westinghouse Electric Corporation as part of a campaign to increase employee morale. It features Rosie, in a polka dot bandanna, flexing her arm under the tagline “We Can Do It!”.
Multiple women have stepped forward over the years as the model for Rosie, and they all have made a good case for their claim. But Rosie is not an individual person. She is an icon who represents all the women who stepped up in WWII to fill roles in factories and offices that had traditionally been held by men. Nearly 6 million women entered the workforce during the war and helped America become the arsenal of democracy.
Even after the war, Rosie’s image could be seen in the feminist movement as women fought for equal rights and strove to keep their role in the workplace.
Marge Bong Drucker: A Class Act
Marge grew up in Superior and attended Superior State Teachers College when she met Richard Bong, who was home on leave in 1943. They met at the Homecoming dance when Richard was asked to come and crown the queen. When his leave was finished, she gave him a wallet-sized photo of her graduation photo, which went to the Pacific Theater with him.
Richard wanted to personalize his P-38, so he asked one of the photographic crew to help him blow the picture up and paste it to the plane. He named his plane “Marge” with her name next to the photo. At this point, Richard was the top-scoring American Ace, and in his words, she became “the most shot-at girl in the Pacific”.
After Richard’s third and final tour, they married in Superior and moved to California, where he became a test pilot. Tragically, he died just less than 6 months after their wedding. Marge was devastated but chose to remain in California and try to rebuild her life. She spent the next decade working as a model and model instructor. She married Murray Drucker and had two daughters. She and Murray launched several successful magazines and traveled the world. On her own, she launched the Boxer Review about the dog breed, and she won several national awards for it.
After Murray died, she reunited with the Bong family and eventually returned to live in Superior. She was a strong supporter of the museum and traveled the country working to raise funds for the building. She proudly attended the opening in 2002. In 2003 she passed away from cancer.
There are many people in Superior that still remember her and when we ask them what she was like, overwhelmingly, we always hear the same answer. “She was such a classy woman”.
Taletta Haraldson: WWI Nurse
Taletta joined the Army Nurse Corps, one of the over 21,000 nurses who enlisted during World War I, and one of 10,000 who were sent to work in French hospitals. She was born in Clay County, Iowa to Norwegian immigrant parents. Taletta volunteered in January 1918 as a 30-year-old graduate of the Swedish Hospital School of Nursing in Minneapolis. Upon enlisting, she was sent to Base Hospital 88 in eastern France.
For Army Corps nurses, war service was difficult and uncomfortable. Haraldson and her fellow nurses treated shrapnel wounds, infections, mustard gas burns, exposure, and medical and emotional trauma. They worked long hours, with little privacy or time off. Haraldson worked in these conditions for over a year, splitting her time between Base Hospitals 88 and 53. She earned a French citation for her work during the war. . She returned to the U.S. in 1919.
After the war, Haraldson served another 18 years in the Army Nurse Corps, in stations throughout the United States, Guam and the Philippines. Haraldson took advantage of her time overseas and made her way through Asia, Europe, and Africa during a four-month furlough.
Her last post was at Fort Riley, KA, where she retired in 1937 at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. That same year, she moved back to Iowa and married a widower with four children. She died in 1958 at the age of 70.
Haraldson is one of many women who went into nursing during WWI, to find a way to help the fighting men, to find a career and to see the world.
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