(uplifting violin music)
- I think we opened the door for women
to work in any kind of job.
Rosie the Riveter stands
for all of the women
who did anything to help win World War II.
- I sewed underwear for the servicemen.
- I picked up scrap
metal for the war effort.
- I was a secretary for the War Department
in the Pentagon.
- I was a riveter.
(upbeat music)
- I am Dr. Frances Carter,
and I live in Birmingham.
I'm 97 year old.
I enjoy living here.
I get up and look at
somebody and visualize
what that was like.
John Thomas Carter, he went overseas,
and we just kind of wrote
letters along for a while.
I said, well hey, if I'd been a boy,
I would've been drafted by now,
so I said I ought to do something more.
It just happened to be a riveter.
I had never really been in an airplane.
By the time I got there, they were B-29s.
That's a great big old bomber.
I worked with a bucker,
as I would drill a hole
and shoot the rivet, she would
buck from the other side.
What we were doing was trying
to make a two headed nail.
We were doing blue
collar construction work.
We were not trying to be women's liberers
or anything of that sort.
We were really trying to learn
a job to help win the war
to get the boys home.
I think the men accepted us,
and then felt like we
could do these things.
(upbeat bass music)
- (Dr. Carter) Before the war,
school teaching was really a woman's work,
but they never got to be a principal
'til well after the war.
We could be a teacher but not a principal.
You could be a nurse but
very few got to be a doctor.
We really opened the door
for all kinds of work.
We also did another thing we
didn't know we were doing;
we changed fashion.
You had to wear no jewelry,
and we always wore real red lipstick
'cause I think they thought that'd make up
for not wearing jewelry.
You had to retrain your hair,
and wore rubber-sole shoes, coveralls.
Although, I picked cotton in a dress.
As I look back over it now,
I wonder how in the world I ever did that.
What would we do without pants now?
Y'all have a lot to give us credit for.
(intense violin music)
After the war, John and I got
married and had two children.
He really was an solid
person, and understanding,
and intelligent.
I never dreamed of going and
getting a doctor's degree,
but he said, "you're gonna do it."
(light triumphant music)
I was 76 when I started
the American Rosie the
Riveter Association.
John said, well yeah, I'll help you.
He thought I meant a
club just in Birmingham,
but I really was thinking
of the whole nation.
This picture, "We Can Do
It!" is not copyrighted.
They said they never
expected it'd be famous.
(uplifting music)
Kind of turned out to be a movement.
Now there's more than 6200 members.
We have Rosies and Rose Buds and Rivets.
The Rosies together are very inspiring,
they may not know each other,
maybe they're in a wheel chair,
but their minds are pretty sharp.
And I feel like it's sort of a heritage
that we have, and we might as
well show it off a little bit.
We can still do it.
(intense music)
John and I started giving speeches,
we thought of "Rosie and her Paratrooper".
In March of 2014, John passed away.
That was two weeks shy of
our 68th wedding anniversary.
We didn't talk much about dying.
He was just so up-and-going,
and I just didn't expect it
at all.
What on Earth am I left here for?
Well, that's what I keep wondering.
Now, I give speeches
with my daughter, Nell.
(empowering music)
I would like to live a while longer,
as long as it's like this.
I get kind of teary about this,
but I hope my parents
feel like I did all right.
And they didn't have much money to give me
to go to school on, and
they were kind of begging me
to quit 'fore I did, but I don't think
they were disappointed.
(gentle music)
I do think, though,
there ought to be a lot
of give and take between the generations.
That's good for both sides.
I think there's some things
that the young ones can learn
from the older ones, and
the older ones can learn
from the younger.
(gentle music)
Acceptance, non-jealousy,
loveliness, happiness,
companionship.
Those are the things that
make life well lived.
(gentle uplifting music)
