I have an old buddy that sends me  jokes and meaningful emails often with military themes. This past week Roger passed on an email with photos of World War II inspirational posters, some like the Norman Rockwell piece are famous iconic images, while others I had not seen before. One that seemed oddly missing was Rosie The Riveter, which sticks in my mind as one of the most famous posters of the era.

Who can call themselves a collector and not watch the enormously popular TV program, Antiques Road Show? I have enjoyed the show for as long as it’s been airing on our local public TV station. With many appraisers having a specialty, over time we anticipate seeing Nicholas Lowry, president of Swann Auctions of New York, preside over an appraisal of poster art from this traumatic time in our nation’s history. One of the episodes had him appraising a group of WWII posters. They had been retrieved by a dumpster diver and we learn the value of this famous form of art work, so often discarded as trivial.

I started to wonder if I could find Rosie’s poster. Surely with computer in hand, well at least on my desk, I wanted to see that image again. With no need for luck, a site called about.com popped up with Womens’ History written and compiled by Jone Johnson Lewis.

Here I found the famous Rosie, helping out on the home front, sleeves on her coveralls rolled up and flexing her muscle for the war effort and eventually her own career in the work force.

But wait a second, I had seen a picture of women in coveralls before. It was in the old lobby of the Briggs & Stratton engine plant in Milwaukee. A huge photo of women in coveralls, hung on the wall, each attending a belt driven lathe, as male supervisors looked on. This one was from World War I.  So Rosie was not the first. I wish I had that image now.

As for other older images of women at work, I often find pictures in old magazines depicting early office equipment ads especially from the 1920s, or the ever popular telephone operator on a Bell System AT&T advertisement.

Any dad with daughters will probably understand my pride in knowing my two grew up with, and fully participate in, the riches of their fore bearer’s struggles for equality and personal freedoms.

Now! May I encourage all my readers to inspect old photos and papers from your family’s past before they wind up in the trash. Keep those items for future generations. Show them the savings book Grandma kept adding into before her last name changed in marriage. Let them know Grandpa worked throughout the depression and put food on the table of less fortunate relatives. That Great Aunty was a telephone operator. Save the picture of Grandma in her Victory garden, or running the tractor on the family farm. Proudly display the photo of Great Granddad in his WW-I uniform. And step back and add in your own personal history to be sure your memories are also passed on to your children and beyond.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 3:46 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events, flea market finds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.