Date: 2004-06-02
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker. I would like to begin by thanking the House Womens Caucus led by the gentlewoman from New York and the gentlewoman from West Virginia for their sponsorship and their pushing for this resolution to come to the floor and to thank the House and Senate cosponsors of our resolution. including Californias two Senators. Senator BOXER and Senator FEINSTEIN. and Richmonds Rosie the Riveter superintendent Judy Hart from the National Park Service and. obviously. the 6 million women who helped build American history. Many people have learned about the Rosie the Riveter story recently from the great work being done by Ford Motor Corporation to encourage Rosies to come forward and tell the story of the Rosies. along with the National Park Foundation. This legislation that we are voting on today honors the millions of women who answered the call to service on the homefront during World War H. The Rosies. as they are known. built tanks and ships. working as welders. machinists. mechanics. pipe fitters. electricians and boilermakers and so many other trades and professions during the Second World War while so many men were off in the battles of combat. They learned the skilled jobs previously reserved for men. They earned mens wages. and they gained new independence. The effort by these women made victory abroad possible. Those who have studied the history of the- period will remember how unprepared America was to enter the Second World War. It is because of the effort by these Rosies that we met the challenge and succeeded in winning the Second World War. But it also was a time when there was some dramatic change in the workforce in America. Women and minorities were gaining access to highpaying jobs and industry for the first time. Health care and services for employees and their families were available on a fulltime basis for the first time in many instances. Services. including child care. to help parents balance family and work for the first time became available. The oldest continuous child care center in the program is in my district that was part of the Kaiser Shipyards in the San Francisco Bay area. and it was named after Ruth Powers who was a teacher and a Rosie at that time. and it continues in service today. We saw these incredible partnerships created between government. industry and the labor unions to take care of the workforce and to train the workforce and to make sure they could report to work every day. It is also clear that this contribution is absolutely tantamount to our winning the Second World War. This weekend we will have a rivet cutting at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Homefront National Park in Richmond. California. where we will cut the ribbon on the new Visitors Center that is being created there. Kaiser shipyards in Richmond. where they produced a Liberty ship every day. women comprised over a quarter of the workforce. Their shipyard was the largest and most productive of World War II. The war transformed the economy of California. The Statepopulation grew by nearly 75 percent. Richmond grew from 23.000 people to a booming town of 100.000 people in support of the warfront industries that were related there at that time. Many people today think that 247 is a term that came out of the technology revolution. out of the dot.com revolution. Mr. Speaker. 247 was a watchword in Richmond. California. We had 24hour supermarkets because people worked three shifts. We had 24hour rooming houses where people changed beds according to the shifts that they were working. We had 24hour child care for families. 24hour physician services. 24hour health care. because the effort there was to keep the workforce working so that they could meet the demands of the war. which they did. It also provided for the most rapid and deep integration of the American workforce up to that time in history. as did much of World War H in the industry base. It changed the economy. it changed our society. it changed the womens movement in this country and their role in American society. If you have met the Rosies. you understand the pride that they demonstrate when many of them can still show their journeymans card. when many of them can describe the fear they had on the first day of work when they showed up for jobs that they had never heard of or seen done before. and also the pride when they now recognize what they contributed to: the winning of the Second World War. I want to thank the cosponsors of this legislation. the House womens organization for pursuing this. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.