Meet a Real-Life Rosie the Riveter

Now 98, Mae Krier fought for decades for a salute to the women who toiled in WWII plants and shipyards

Katherine Skiba,

AARP

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Published July 01, 2024

Mae Krier, wearing light colored clothes and a bright red and white polka dot scarf, sits on a couch in her living room.

Mae Krier poses for a portrait in her home in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in 2021. Krier was a Rosie the Riveter and spent her time building airplanes for Boeing during World War II.

Tyger Williams/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP Photo

At 98, Mae Krier continues to pull up her sleeves to work. As one of the original Rosie the Riveters, she’s been a powerful advocate for recognizing the millions of American women who built aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry and ammunition vital to the U.S.-Allied victory during WWII.

“My dream was to get the American women recognized after WWII,” Krier says. “The men came home to flying flags and parades. And when I came home with a pink slip, it just wasn’t fair. Because the men will tell you, they couldn’t win the war without us.”

Though she doesn’t recall the exact year she began her campaign for recognition, Krier remembers that she picked up her pen and “started writing everywhere.” For decades she’s collaborated with other “Rosies,” pushing for more awareness of their contributions.

Watch for Krier on July 4, when she and others from the greatest generation will take the stage during A Capitol Fourth in Washington, D.C. The live concert airs at 8 p.m. ET on PBS.

In 2020, the Department of Labor inducted the Rosies into its Hall of Honor, saying some 6 million women held war-industry jobs during WWII.

In April of this year, Krier accepted the Congressional Gold Medal bestowed collectively on the dwindling ranks of Rosies. She says that while she was “elated” to receive the recognition, “that journey getting there, you can’t put a price on that journey — all the wonderful people I met.”

More tributes came in June, when she represented the trailblazing Rosies on a trip to Normandy, France, commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

A group of women dressed in red, white and blue .

A group of Rosie the Riveters ahead of a 2024 Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in Washington, D.C. Congress passed legislation authorizing the medal in 2020, after years of urging by Phyllis Gould and Mae Krier, who accepted the award on behalf of all Rosies.

Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Redux

“While in Normandy, the first day everything was about the men and the storming of the beaches. Not once did they mention that the equipment they were using was built by women,” Krier tells AARP. “Why do we have to keep reminding them that had it not been for women, we may not have won the war?”

Krier’s path to becoming a Rosie

Krier, who lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, says she’ll never forget December 7, 1941 — the attack on Pearl Harbor. Just days later, Hitler declared war on the U.S. And about a year and a half later, Krier joined the ranks of her fellow women to serve in the war effort. It was her first real job.

In 1943, at just 17 years old, too young to vote and nearly 1,300 miles from her home in North Dakota, she became a riveter. Her job: assembling B-17 bombers, the so-called Flying Fortresses, for Boeing in Seattle. With a badge restricting her to specific parts of the plant, she was handed an air-powered rivet gun and underwent two weeks of training.

Rosalind P. Walter: The Woman Who Inspired an Icon

The character Rosie the Riveter was inspired by war worker Rosalind P. Walter, who, at 19 years old, began working as a riveter on Corsair fighter planes in Stratford, Connecticut.

A news article featuring her work later inspired songwriters Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb to pen “Rosie the Riveter.” With the song’s 1943 release, the concept of Rosie the Riveter became part of public consciousness.

Her status as an icon was further cemented by the widespread circulation of illustrations and propaganda, such as the May 29, 1943, cover of The Saturday Evening Post, illustrated by Norman Rockwell.

However, the iconic image most associated with Rosie today, accompanied with the “We Can Do It” slogan, didn’t become popular until a 1982 Washington Post Magazine article about poster collections at the National Archives. This depiction was created by J. Howard Miller, a graphic artist hired by Westinghouse to design a series of posters in support of the war effort.

Read more about Krier’s fast-paced days from 1943 to 1945 on the B-17 assembly line. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity:

I come from strong and capable people. My great-grandparents pioneered into what was known as the Dakota Territory. My father worked for a while with my uncle on the farm, then he became manager of a grain elevator.

I’ll never forget Pearl Harbor. My sister and I had been to a Sunday matinee. When we came home our folks were sitting beside the radio very upset. I don’t think I knew where Pearl Harbor was.

My father was such a happy-go-lucky man, and the day we put my brother on a train to leave for the Navy and go to war, I came home and saw my father crying. I’d never seen him cry before. And that was happening to mothers and fathers all over our country. We were lucky. My brother came back.

original rosie the riveter poster with text saying we can do it.

A World War II color poster by J. Howard Miller depicting Rosie the Riveter encourages American women to show their strength and go to work for the war effort.

Courtesy National Archives/Getty Images

When school was out in early May of ’43, my sister, my girlfriend and I decided on a lark to go to Seattle for the summer.

My girlfriend’s father was setting up housing for her family to move out there. Housing became an immediate problem with so many factories encouraging out-of-state people to come and work in the shipyards and aircraft factories.

My friend’s father knew that Boeing was hiring, and we wouldn’t have a problem getting a job, which we didn’t. We thought we would only stay for the summer, but we loved it, and we all became riveters for the duration of the war. I was 5 feet 2 and weighed a little over 100 pounds. I sort of fell in love with the B-17.

A woman smiles in a black and white portrait.

Mae Krier in 1944.

Courtesy Mae Krier

When the buses picked us up, they were packed. Men and women would just be packed in there like salmon to get to work. I made 92 cents an hour. The men got more than we did. It was unfair because we worked side by side and sometimes we were better than them. But, you know, we were so dedicated to our country that we didn’t even think about it at the time. Now I fight for equal pay for women.

In most cases our day was the usual eight hours, unless production got behind. Then we would work overtime and sometimes a Saturday or Sunday. I worked on Thanksgiving Day, which was unheard of. I don’t remember anyone ever saying no. We did what they needed to win the war.

I riveted the plane’s wings and the outer casings of the engines. There was no way we could possibly say how many rivets we installed in a day. Each day was different. We moved fast.

A five-star general, Henry Hap Arnold, came to the factory one day and started talking to us and shook our hands. It was probably for morale. After he left, we were just more determined to do a good job, do whatever it took to win the war.

I was there when the 5,000th B-17 built since Pearl Harbor was finished, and we even got to push it on the tarmac. It was called the ‘5 Grand’ and we all signed the plane. It made 78 bombing missions over Europe.

It was Mrs. Gertrude Aldrich who christened this plane. On her second try the champagne bottle broke, splashing her. She was chosen because her son’s Flying Fortress was blown up over Germany and he was taken as a prisoner of war.

A woman in a blue jumpsuit works on a yellow aircraft.

A Rosie the Riveter at work on a Consolidated Aircraft bomber in Fort Worth, Texas.

Howard R. Hollem/FSA/OWI/Library of Congress

I worked with many war widows. And I tell the story of a coworker, a Gold Star Mother who had lost a son. She didn’t quit working. She said, “I don’t want another mother to lose a son because he doesn’t have the equipment he needs.”

I met my future husband at the Service Men’s Club in Seattle. He was in the Navy. We loved to dance, both of us, and we danced our way through life. We only had a weekend for our honeymoon in 1945. But we had gotten our marriage license, which cost $2. We were grateful that they waived the fee for servicemen at the time. We were married almost 70 years before he passed away in 2014.

A man and woman smile and hold hands in a black and white photo.

Mae Krier and husband, Norm, in 1944.

Courtesy Mae Krier

Today I have two children, four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. They named the youngest after me.

Krier’s renown as a real-life Rosie has seen her give talks to students, teachers and military personnel. Five years ago, the Air Force chief of staff threw a birthday party for her at Department of Defense headquarters.

“I’ve been to the Pentagon three times,” Krier reflects. “I drove a Sherman tank in Texas. I have been taken for a ride in the KC-135, the refueling plane. They did their best to get me to jump from a plane. I said, ‘Are you nuts?’ ”

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Katherine Skiba is a contributing writer for AARP. She has reported for the Chicago Tribune, U.S. News & World Report and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and is the author of a wartime memoir, Sister in the Band of Brothers: Embedded With the 101st Airborne in Iraq. She was a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University.

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