Helen Bray, who left school to become a mechanic at a western aircraft plant, is making an emplanage section on a new Consolidated transport, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas. This new ship, adapted from the B-24 bomber, is known as the C-87, carries one of the greatest human and cargo loads of any plane now in mass production. Although the image of Rosie the Riveter reflected the industrial work of welders and riveters, the majority of working women filled non-factory positions in every sector of the economy. What unified the experiences of these women was that they proved to themselves, and the country, that they could do a man's job and could do it well. Photographed by Howard R. Hollem, 1942. |