Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Rosie
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Shifting from one foot to the other, I am lingering outside the Rosie the Riveter National Park museum in Richmond, California. Inside the exhibit hall, my teenage daughter Brittany—her latest outfit is ripped jeans and exposed midriff—is pretending that she is not with her father.
In the car coming here, as Brittany folded herself into her seat, I asked, “Do you think the exhibits will be riveting?” Brittany reached over to the car radio and cranked up the volume.
I proposed a father-daughter day in hopes getting past Brittany’s munitions-grade moods—sullen, withdrawn, rejecting. I thought that going together to a museum celebrating women might give us something to talk about besides her messy room, erratic school grades and provocative clothing preferences. It was a clumsy plan which Brittany made abundantly clear before she pouted off to tour the exhibits alone.
Museums, monuments, marble busts, the Mount Rushmores of the world pay tribute to the great and the glorious, the important and the impressive. They memorialize the big moments in history, and give us markers to measure ourselves. Mostly, they are by and about men.
I want Brittany to respect, self-respect, that half the world’s progress is the underreported and under-touristed history of her gender. I teach high school history.
Before World War II, wives and mothers normally worked inside the home, unpaid. Wage-earning women were relegated to low-status jobs like maid service or textile manufacturing, perhaps a clerical position or teaching young children.
During World War II, to replace males sent to the frontlines, 6 million women joined the workforce as welders, machinists, electricians, carpenters, mechanics. They worked in railyards, gas stations, farms, military offices, every manufacturing sector.
Virtually overnight, WWII tripled the size of Richmond where residents labored in 56 war industries. Marian Sousa was a draftsperson at Richmond Shipyard No. 3 where she helped build 747 liberty ships, landing craft, floating hospitals and frigates—a naval accomplishment unmatched anywhere in the world before or since. In Sousa’s words, “I specifically didn’t do anything great, but I participated in something that was great.”
Waiting for Brittany, I grasp the pitted metal guardrail at the edge of a sea wall. The choppy waters remind me that, since my wife’s death, I have been living with whitecaps and undercurrents.
My legs are slightly akimbo as if braced for the next shudder of a crashing wave. I look like a man mesmerized by the tidal pull of San Francisco Bay or a widower unmoored, adrift, worn out, from raising his fifteen-year-old daughter.
Unless Brittany is asking for money, she hardly speaks a word to me, so I don’t know her dreams, her aspirations. Whatever her path, I think she knows her father has her back—even if she can’t figure out to say ‘thank you’ in a language we both speak.
After the museum, Brittany and I eat at a nearby cafe, aptly named Assemble. I order a tuna sandwich. She chooses a burger and fries. Halfway into our meal, without a word she drops a handful of fries on my plate.
