In 1942, J. Howard Miller illustrated a picture of “Rosie the Riveter,” a bandana-clad factory worker flexing her muscles for all the world to see. Above her head, he placed the phrase “We Can Do It!” A piece of wartime propaganda, Rosie soon became a symbol of working women across the country. Today’s Rosie the Riveters work in nearly every industry and pursue nearly every career under the sun. As part of our commitment to the nation’s labor force, Prudential Overall Supply would like to honor the working women of the past and toast the working women of today. To view our women's workwear at Prudential Overall Supply, please visit https://www.prudentialuniforms.com/services/uniforms-and-apparel/industrial-shirts/womens-industrial-work-shirt/

1. A Toast to the Working Woman

2. • For much of American history, many
women were expected to stay home
and tend to their families, whether
they would have preferred a
professional career or not.
• Still, women have worked outside the
home since the earliest days of the
Industrial Revolution.
• Many women with lower economic
means had to work in factories, homes,
and hospitals in order to support
themselves and their families.

3. • More often than not, the work was hard, the
conditions were substandard, and the pay was
miserable.
• To add insult to injury, women were rarely recognized
for the work they did, and they often had to tend to
their own domestic chores as well.
• All of that began to change in the mid-20th century,
when cultural and social upheavals would
revolutionize attitudes toward working women.1

4. • When the United States entered
World War II in 1941, the government
recruited or drafted every able-bodied
man to serve in the armed forces.
• Few were left to work in the nation’s
factories and offices.
• The question became, who would
build the aircraft and tanks that made
victory possible? Who would keep the
economy strong enough to sustain the
war effort?
• The answer: Women.

5. • But how could the country encourage
women, many of whom were used to
staying at home, to enter the labor force?
• They needed a role model, someone to
inspire them to get out of the house and
into the factory.
• They got it in the form of Rosie the Riveter,
an idealized factory worker who became
the face of the wartime propaganda effort
to recruit women.
• A series of illustrations and songs
popularized Rosie, and soon she had
become an icon of working women across
the United States.2

6. • Decades later, in the 1980s, Rosie
the Riveter became a symbol of
female empowerment.
• Much had changed between 1950
and 1980. A new generation of
women saw working outside the
home as a right, and many decided
to pursue professional careers.
• In 1950, only 33.9 percent of
women over 16 participated in the
labor force. By 1998, that figure
had risen to 59.8 percent.3

7. • Women have been demanding equal
pay since at least the 1880s, when
women’s rights groups began to gain
traction in both England and the
United States.
• They didn’t make much headway,
however, until the middle of the 20th
century, when social conditions started
to favor the empowerment of women
in the labor force.
• Legal recognition finally came when
Congress passed the Equal Pay Act of
1963, declaring that women should
receive the same payment for the
same work.4

8. • Today, women continue to make headway
when it comes to labor force participation.
• In 2018, 57 percent of working-age women
participated in the labor force, a number
that’s held relatively steady for the past few
decades.5
• Still, in spite of all the efforts to achieve pay
equality, the wage gap remains, with women
making $.80 to every $1 made by a man.
• Although there may be many reasons for the
disparity, some of which have nothing to do
with discrimination, many women continue
to lobby for greater gender equality in the
workplace.

9. • Economic concerns still dominate many
women’s lives, and being a woman in
the workplace still presents challenges.
• Most have to work in order to support
themselves and their loved ones, and
many struggle to balance their work
lives with their home lives.
• That being said, women today have
greater flexibility when it comes to
choosing their life goals, whether that
be working in the home or in the
factory, pursuing a career as a medical
researcher or an automotive mechanic.

10. Prudential workwear helps women succeed, no matter what type of career they
choose to pursue. Women across the country – chefs and waitresses, doctors and
nurses, mechanics and factory workers, executives and sales representatives – wear
our uniforms with pride. Visit our site to see our selection of work uniforms for women
and learn more about our commitment to America’s labor force.

11. 1. http://striking-women.org/module/women-and-work/19th-and-early-
20th-century
2. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/rosie-the-riveter
3. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2000/Feb/wk3/art03.htm
4. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/epa.cfm
5. https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/stats_data.htm