‘We Can Do It’ Again: Deadline Nears to Save Rosie the Riveter’s Factory

The 778 “Rosies” who gathered March 29 at former General Motors assembly plant where the original “Rosie the Riveter” – the iconic symbol of women’s contributions to the World War II effort on the homefront – once worked set a Guinness World Record.

But whether staging the “largest gathering of people dressed as Rosie the Riveter” will be enough to save the Willow Run Bomber Plant from the wrecking ball won’t be know until May 1, The Detroit News reports.

That’s the deadline for Save the Willow Run Bomber Plant to raise $1.25 million to save the Ypsilanti Township plant and transform it into the new home of the Yankee Air Museum.

Only 250 “Rosies” were needed to claim the Guinness record.

The group has already raised more than $6.5 million to save Rosie’s factory and create the museum, according to the Yankee Air Museum Facebook page.

The Willow Run Plant is considered historically significant because the B-24 bomber planes were assembled at the astonishing rate of one every hour. The 40,000 workers included many pioneering women on the assembly line, who were nicknamed “Rosie the Riveter,” according to the Save Willow Run Bomber Plant web site.