YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP (WKZO-AM) — 2,097 women showed up at Willow Run in Ypsilanti Township on Saturday dressed as “Rosie the Riveter,” and, if that count stands, it will be a new world record.
It’s unofficial until the Guinness Book of World Records says its official, but it looks like they have done it again.
The first record for Rosie gatherings was set at the plant in 2004, where the original “Rosie,” Rose Will Monroe, worked manufacturing B-24 Bombers.
A group in California beat that record with 1,084 Rosies in August. Now they have shattered it back in Ypsi.
Rosie was the poster girl for recruiting women to come work in the factories during World War II and has been an iconic figure ever since.
The event was staged primarily as a fundraiser for the Yankee Air Museum, which has slowly been turning the old factory into a place to remember the old planes, the war effort and Rosie.
A bill has been approved in the State Senate that would make the B-24 Liberator, the bomber manufactured at the Willow Run facility, the state’s official airplane.
– John McNeill
