No discussion of American women’s role in World War II would be complete without mentioning the ‘discovery’ of 19 year-old Norma Jeane Dougherty in 1945, while working at the RadioPlane munitions plant, by army photographer David Conover.

Over at the Newport Independent, former welder Ruth White discusses being a working woman in wartime…

‘White notes that the pictures of the young women seen from those days were accurate as they were portrayed to the public.

“We wore our hair in bandanas, wore high top shoes with steel toes and coveralls.  Our leather coveralls and jacket, hood and gloves was in six lockers at the yard,” she said.

“You’ve seen pictures of women, some famous – some not, dressed in those coveralls and bandanas and that is how we went to work every day.”

Among those famous pictures which have been distributed for years was a young Norma Jeane Mortensen Baker, who parlayed her “15 minutes of fame” as a patriotic riveter into that of a Hollywood starlet.

“You probably know her as Marilyn Monroe,” White quipped, “those pictures helped  get her noticed.”‘