Rosie the Riveter Poster |
Let’s Save The Willow Run Bomber Plant!
The Detroit-area factory where 'Rosie the Riveter' showed that a woman could do a 'man's work' by building World War II-era bombers, making her an enduring symbol of American female empowerment, will be demolished if money can't be found to save it.
The real Rose Monroe, who died in 1997 |
Although women performed what had been male-dominated roles in plants all over the country during the war, it was a Willow Run worker - one of an untold number of women in its 40,000-person workforce - who caught the eye of Hollywood producers casting a 'riveter' for a government film about the war effort at home.
Rosie the Riveter Pants available at Get Go Retro |
The Willow Run factory went back to making automobiles after the war ended, and it did so for more than a half-century under the General Motors name before closing for good in 2010.Now, Doe and other donors are hoping to save at least some of the massive structure to convert it into the new home of the Yankee Air Museum. The museum's original headquarters burned down in 2004, and it is currently housed at Willow Run Airport in Van Buren Township, which is near Ypsilanti Township, where the plant is located.
Yankee Air Museum backers are hoping to tap into some of that patented Rosie resolve in their efforts to transform Willow Run. The hulking facility currently is in the hands of the Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust, which took over sites around the country left behind in the bankruptcy of GM. Much of the plant has fallen into disrepair, including the portion the Yankee Air Museum is eyeing.
'We now have the opportunity to actually take a piece of this plant. It's due to be demolished over the next two or three years,' said Dennis Norton, president of the Michigan Aerospace Foundation. 'There's no further use for it. It's too big. It's too old to be used in modern-day manufacturing.'
Riveters at work |
So do your part… $50 saves 1 sq. ft. of the historic Willow Run Bomber Plant!
If we fail, our part of the plant will share the fate of the rest of the building, and a valuable piece of our history could be lost in its entirety. But…
Just as the Willow Run workers helped win World War II… together, we can do it!
Do your part. Click on “Donate” and give generously…. and please tweet, post and share to spread the word!
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Sources: By ASSOCIATED PRESS
https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/savethebomberplant
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2380893/Rosie-Riveters-WWII-Detroit-factory-Willow-Run-risk-demolition.html