Claire Dahl

“I know in my soul that I would have been a Rosie if I’d lived during World War II,” Claire Dahl says, grinning.

The retired Ann Arbor history teacher has made it her mission to tell “as many people as possible” about the three million women who entered America’s workforce during WWII. Dressed in the iconic Rosie the Riveter garb made famous by Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post cover (navy blue coveralls, rolled pant legs and sleeves, red socks, red-and-white headscarf), Dahl is addressing a Dexter church group on a gray winter day with an energy reminiscent of the military engines Rosies worked on during World War II.

“They fueled the war effort and freed America’s men for military duties,” Dahl says. “Why? Because they wanted to bring their fathers, brothers, and boyfriends home safely from the war.”

And, Dahl adds, by leaving home and mastering the use of tools, they revolutionized their world.

“These were brave, brave women who might never have gone beyond the boundaries of their hometowns before. But they climbed on buses and trains and headed to Detroit and Willow Run and many other factories around the U.S. in search of good-paying jobs and adventure.”

March is Women’s History Month, and Dahl has packed her schedule with appearances throughout the state, telling the story of an era that revolutionized women’s roles. She has joined Rosies on several Honor Flights (which are typically for military veterans) to Washington, D.C., and in 2017 she helped organize a record-setting gathering of 3,374 Rosies and Rosie wannabes. On April 10, she says, surviving Rosies will receive a “much-delayed and much-deserved” Congressional Gold Medal for their WWII service.

Raised in Lambertville, New Jersey and Kenosha, Wisconsin, Claire Kitchen married John Dahl on Thanksgiving of her senior year at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. “He was a graduate student hall director and I was an RA,” she says. “After we married, I moved into the ‘men’s dorm’—and I got many laughs when people saw me leaving the ‘men’s dorm’ in the mornings.”

In 1971, she graduated with a double major in political science and German and began her teaching career in Glencoe, Illinois. While there, she earned a master’s degree in American history from Northeastern Illinois University, with a focus on women’s studies. “It spoke to my soul,” she says. “I loved learning about strong women in American history.”

She had a special interest in WWII because both her father and grandfather had served in the Navy then. “The activism of the Vietnam era and the 1970s made this direction feel timely and right.”

The Dahls moved to Ann Arbor in 1979, when John joined Dundee Cement as director of human resources. Their son Adam was born shortly afterwards, and daughter Kara followed in 1983. After ten years as a stay-at-home mom and volunteer, Dahl returned to teaching. Since she taught advanced placement history, she proudly declared herself Pioneer’s “AP Queen.” 

After retiring in 2009, Dahl says, “I took a few years to decide where to volunteer.” She shared two of John’s interests—Kiwanis and Ann Arbor Golf & Outing—and added Meals on Wheels, the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation Youth Council, and the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport.

There, in 2014, she found her greatest passion when she began delving into the history of the women who built B-24 bombers in Henry Ford’s Willow Run plant.

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Starting in 1941, when President Franklin Roosevelt vowed the U.S. would become the Arsenal of Democracy, Willow Run ran ads throughout the region, promising 85 cents per hour for the first two weeks of training and $1 per hour after six weeks. Employees worked nine-hour shifts six days a week and were paid time and a half after forty hours. Ford offered thirty-two mechanical courses (“for which any employee is eligible without cost”), “excellent opportunities for advancement,” and paid transportation. Starting in 1942, they could also rent federal housing for $3.50 per week for a shared room, $5 for a single room, and between $23.50 and $38.50 per month for families, depending on their size.

From all over the South and Midwest, people responded to Willow Run’s call. Recruiters assured women that they already knew how to work an assembly line, because “they worked an assembly line every time they baked cookies or made their kids’ lunches,” Dahl says. “Women were told, ‘If you’ve ever followed a recipe, you can load shells. We’ll teach you what to do.’”

In 1941, one in 100 aircraft industry workers were women; two years later, one in five were women. In Detroit, 44,064 women were employed in manufacturing in 1940. That number rose to 71,000 in 1942 and skyrocketed to 269,000 in 1943. The new opportunities were especially transformative for Black women: Before the war, 72 percent were classified as poorly paid; by its end, the number had fallen to 40 percent, thanks to Executive Order 8802, which banned discriminatory employment practices in war plants.

“The armed forces were still segregated, but war industries were not,” Dahl explains. “Men and women, Blacks and Whites, earned equal pay for the same work—and it’s a darn shame that didn’t continue after the war ended!”  

With thousands of workers converging on Willow Run, which had been farmland a year before, the need for housing was urgent. “Everyone for miles around with a spare bedroom rented it to the newcomers, but housing options quickly ran out,” Dahl says. “Workers were sleeping in tents and even in their cars—until Senator Harry Truman came on the scene and told Ford that their workers’ housing situations were disgraceful.”

Federally funded housing sprang up in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and surrounding communities. “The units were freezing in winter, roasting in summer, and came equipped with coal stoves and paper-thin walls, but they were better than living in a car!” Dahl says. “Ford also provided bus service, medical care, and child care.” 

Women brought their children to factory nurseries and schools. If a child was sick, nurses tended them so their moms could continue working. “Never have we had such marvelous day care programs!” says Dahl, now a grandmother of four.

Each B-24 required more than 300,000 rivets, so Willow Run’s Rosies installed a lot of them—but the title isn’t confined to riveters. “I consider every woman who worked in war industries a Rosie,” Dahl tells the church group. “Building B-24s requires many, many different jobs. And those women worked without safety equipment—earphones, gloves, or safety glasses. One Rosie I interviewed had to stick her hand in a vat of glue and smooth it on the fabric bomber tails—without gloves.”

According to Ford Motor Company records, Willow Run produced 8,685 B-24s between 1942 and 1945, thanks to the 42,000 Americans who worked there—one-third of them women. Two nine-hour factory shifts each required between 20,000 and 22,000 workers, six days a week. “Before the war, the premier airplane manufacturer in San Diego was building one plane a month,” Dahl tells her listeners. “By 1944, Willow Run was producing one B-24 every fifty-seven minutes. The assembly line at Willow Run was an engineering marvel!” 

By March 1944, 2.69 million American women were working in wartime industries. Half had never worked outside the home; nearly one-third were housewives.

Dahl asks her audience to imagine the sense of pride the Rosies at Willow Run felt when they saw its huge garage doors open and another B-24 roll out. But she doesn’t forget the heroines of the home front. In her presentation, she points to a lesser-known Rockwell cover called “Rosie to the Rescue,” in which a determined-looking woman is bent over with the weight of tools, a milk delivery, nurse’s cap, pencils and books, scissors, keys, oilcan, rake, hoe, time clock, conductor’s hat, cleaning supplies, and much more. “Women filled all the gaps left when men went into the service,” Dahl says.

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Immediately following V-E Day, the number of women in industry was halved, and after V-J Day only 66,900 women remained in industrial jobs. Many left the labor force involuntarily when veterans returned, Dahl says. A postwar survey in Detroit revealed that 72 percent of laid-off women workers wanted employment but couldn’t find jobs.

Black Detroiter Connie Colson did, but it was a long step down: she went from riveting bomber wing tips to handling pig intestines in a sausage factory. Before her death in 2019, Colson called her time as a Rosie “the best job I ever had.”  

“The G.I. Bill meant that some returning servicemen could postpone entry into the job force,” Dahl says, “but companies everywhere wound down their wartime work and pink-slipped the women who had worked so loyally for them. And, of course, returning veterans eager to go on with their lives deserved jobs, too.”

Dahl has recorded video interviews with twenty-seven local Rosies. “Many of them didn’t know they’re considered a Rosie,” she says, “or that they deserve recognition for their wartime service.” She estimates that 200,000 Rosies are still alive—and between ninety-eight and 103 in age. “If I hear of one, I immediately call for an appointment.”

Dahl has written to documentarian Ken Burns (a Pioneer High alum, “although, regretfully, not my student”), urging him to turn his cameras’ focus onto the remaining Rosies. “Every one has a valuable story to tell,” she says.

“The American workplace has never offered more opportunity—before or since—to more people,” Dahl says, concluding her presentation. “The wartime economy convinced women that they could follow their dreams and visions. It opened social and financial benefits to women the likes of which we still haven’t equaled.”

When her program ends, several listeners gather around Dahl, asking her to speak to their groups. “Sure!” she responds. “But just don’t try to stop me after an hour—I’ve got a lot to say.

“I love what I do. I have the thrill of talking about history without having to grade papers!”

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This article’s photo caption has been edited since it was published in the March 2024 Ann Arbor Observer to correct the error noted below.

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Calls & letters, April 2024

Livie, not Matilda

Rosie the Riveter champion Claire Dahl (Ann Arborite, March) emailed to correct another caption: we said the photo showed her with her granddaughter Matilda. In fact it was Matilda’s sister, Livie.