49 Inspiring Vintage Photos of Extraordinary Women

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Rosie The Riveter Powering A Fighter Plane (1942)

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Despite the lack of support to empower women in the last two centuries prior to 1942, the female workforce of World War II helped drive and win the war. With most men enlisting to join the battlefield, there were big holes in industrial labor to fill. Aside from office and factory work, about 350,000 women joined the Armed Services and functioned at home and abroad. More than 200 members of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps worked non-combatant jobs. The greatest number of female workers was in the aviation industry, with more than 300,000 women working on U.S. airplanes in 1943.

While recruiting women in the munitions industry, the government came up with “Rosie the Riveter,” a bandana-clad character based on a real-life munitions worker. This character became the most iconic image of working women and was one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history. In the picture, an actual “Rosie the Riveter” at the Vultee aircraft factory in Nashville, Tennessee operates a hand drill as she works on an A-31 Vengeance dive bomber.