March 27th on Reelz Channel in the states, they WILL be airing 2 new episodes of Bomb Girls!
Veronica Foster (popularly known as “Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl“) was the Canadian equivalent of the American cultural icon Rosie the Riveter, representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and materiel during World War II. Foster worked for John Inglis Co. Ltd producing Bren light machine guns on a production line on Strachan Avenue in Toronto, Ontario.
She became popular after a series of propaganda posters were produced; most images featured her working for the war effort, but others depicted more casual settings like Foster dancing the jitterbug or attending a dinner party.
Marilyn Monroe worked in an airplane factory as a young woman
“One of the “Rosies” during the WWII years was none other than Marilyn Monroe – well before she became “Marilyn the Hollywood star,” however. The August 2, 1945 issue of Yankmagazine contained an article about women contributing to the war effort at home. The magazine’s cover for that issue included a photo of a woman holding a propeller blade at a factory work bench. The woman’s name was Norma Jean Dougherty, as Marilyn was then married to Merchant Marine seaman James Dougherty. The photo was taken at the assembly line of the Radio Plane munitions factory in Burbank, California. Monroe and Dougherty had married in Los Angeles in June 1942. In 1943, after Dougherty joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and was then sent overseas in 1944, Monroe started work at the Radioplane plant, where she was “discovered.” She then moved out of her mother-in-law’s home, stopped writing to her husband, and filed for divorce in Las Vegas, which was granted in September 1946. James Dougherty, meanwhile, returned from the war, married a new wife in 1947, and joined the Los Angeles Police Department. In 1950, he was one of the police officers who held back the crowd at the premiere of Monroe’s movie, The Asphalt Jungle.” - pophistorydig.com
