Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park is a United States
national historical park
National Historic Site (NHS) is a designation for an officially recognized area of national historic significance in the United States. An NHS usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject. The National Historic ...
located in
Richmond, California
Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was municipal corporation, incorporated on August 7, 1905, and has a Richmond, California City Council, city council. , near
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. The park preserves and interprets the legacy of the
United States home front during World War II
The United States home front during World War II supported the war effort in many ways, including a wide range of volunteer efforts and submitting to government-managed Rationing in the United States, rationing and price controls. There was a gen ...
, including the
Kaiser Richmond Shipyards, the
Victory ship
The Victory ship was a class of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace losses caused by German submarines. They were a more modern design compared to the earlier Liberty ship, were slight ...
SS ''
Red Oak Victory'', a tank factory, housing developments and other facilities built to support America's entry into
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. In particular, the role of
women
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...
and
African-Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
in war industries is explored and honored.
The park is a partnership park, meaning that no land or buildings are actually owned by the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
, which only administers the park. The historical park was established in 2000, and bus tours began in 2007.
Park attractions
The park has a visitor center in the restored Ford Building, with a number of permanent and temporary exhibits about the history of Richmond's wartime industries and workers. A film also illustrates the home-front battle. Rangers are available to answer questions, and also lead guided tours and conduct other
interpretive programs.
A self-guided auto tour with optional walking tour is available for downloading.
In the summer of 2007, preliminary bus tours began with a new guideless model, which instead filled half of the bus with residents who spoke of their experiences from the time to put what are otherwise everyday streets for residents into a greater historical perspective.
[A Tour of Richmond’s WWII Historic Sites](_blank)
Berkeley Daily Planet, by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, May 5, 2006, retrieved September 8, 2007
The Rosie the Riveter Memorial in Marina Bay Park is open year-round, dawn to dusk, as are the other Richmond city parks within the National Park's boundaries.
Rosie Memorial
![Richmond - Marina Bay - Rosie the Riveter monument 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Richmond_-_Marina_Bay_-_Rosie_the_Riveter_monument_01.jpg)
The park's creation was spurred by the construction of a
Rosie the Riveter
Rosie the Riveter is an allegorical cultural icon in the United States who represents the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new ...
memorial in a city shoreline park (three years prior to the creation of the national park), to honor the "Rosies", women who made up much of the workforce at the
shipyard
A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...
s. The four Richmond shipyards, with their combined 27 shipways, produced 747 ships, more than any other shipyard complex in the country. Richmond was home to 56 different war industries, more than any other city of its size in the United States. The city grew nearly overnight from 24,000 people to 100,000 people, overwhelming the available housing stock, roads, schools, businesses and community services.
The effort behind the memorial was initiated by then-Councilwoman Donna Powers. It grew under Project Director Donna Graves to become the first national tribute to
home front
Home front is an English language term with analogues in other languages. It is commonly used to describe the full participation of the British public in World War I who suffered Zeppelin#During World War I, Zeppelin raids and endured Rationin ...
American women.
The memorial is located at Marina Bay Park, the site of former Kaiser
Richmond Shipyard #2. It is the length of a
Liberty ship
Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass ...
with a form of the ship being built. The simple metal pier represents the
stern
The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...
at the water's edge, a simple cylinder frame is the smoke stack, and the
bow is made of
prefabricated
Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is u ...
parts similar to those assembled by the shipyard workers. A
timeline
A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events.
Timelines can use any suitable scale representi ...
of World War II is placed along the walkway running the length of the memorial. Interpretive panels within the structures present information on women's history, labor history, and the home front.
Ford Richmond Plant
The Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant was the largest assembly plant to be built on the
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
.
One of only three tank depots in the entire country, approximately 49,000 jeeps were assembled and 91,000 other military vehicles were processed here. Ford employed thousands of workers at the site during World War II, many of them women who were entering the work force for the first time. "Rosie the Riveter" was a period song representing these women.
In mobilizing the wartime production effort to its full potential, Federal military authorities and private industry began to work closely together on a scale never seen before in American history. This laid the groundwork for what became known as the "
military-industrial complex" during the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
years.
Noted
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
Albert Kahn is credited with the design of the Ford plant in Richmond. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Ford moved its Northern California factory to
Milpitas
Milpitas (Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Marí ...
, where it became known as the
San Jose Assembly Plant
San Jose Assembly was a Ford Motor Company manufacturing site in Northern California, outside of San Jose in what is now the town of Milpitas. It was the automaker's primary factory in that region from 1955 to 1983, replacing the Richmond Assembl ...
.
The plant building has been restored and now houses a variety of private businesses along with the NPS visitor center.
Richmond Shipyards
![Wendy Welder Richmond Shipyards](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Wendy_Welder_Richmond_Shipyards.jpg)
The four Richmond Shipyards were part of the
Kaiser Shipyards
The Kaiser Shipyards were seven major shipbuilding yards located on the West Coast of the United States, United States west coast during World War II. Kaiser ranked 20th among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. The s ...
. The construction of 747 ships during the war here is a feat not equaled anywhere else in the world, before or since.
The park's Rosie memorial is located on the former grounds of Shipyard No.2. Shipyard No.3 is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
Both
Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
and
Victory ship
The Victory ship was a class of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace losses caused by German submarines. They were a more modern design compared to the earlier Liberty ship, were slight ...
s were constructed here. These ships were completed in two-thirds the amount of time and at a quarter of the cost of the average of all other shipyards. The
SS ''Robert E. Peary'' was assembled in less than five days as a part of a special competition among shipyards; but by 1944 it was only taking the astonishingly brief time of a little over two weeks to assemble a Liberty ship by standard methods.
SS ''Red Oak Victory''
![SS Red Oak Victory from the water](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/SS_Red_Oak_Victory_from_the_water.jpg)
The SS ''Red Oak Victory'' is a Victory ship preserved as a
museum ship
A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...
. It was one of 414 Victories built during World War II (constructed at the Richmond Shipyards), but one of only a few of these ships to be transferred from the
Merchant Marine to the
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
. The vessel issued cargo and
munition
Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...
s to various ships in the fleet throughout 1945. During a hazardous tour of duty in the Pacific, SS ''Red Oak Victory'' handled many tons of ammunition, supplying the fleet without a single casualty.
Atchison Village Housing Project
The huge influx of workers coming to live in cities like Richmond, caused intense strain on city infrastructure. One of these strains was the severe lack of housing. Workers arriving in these rapidly expanding urban centers were forced to find what they could. They slept in all night
movie houses, shared "hot beds" (i.e. when one person got in bed, it was still hot from the last person getting out), or just camped out.
Atchison Village Housing Project is an example of the local-
Federal
Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to:
Politics
General
*Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies
*Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
collaboration that provided much needed housing and domestic support for defense workers and their families. The modest, wood-frame buildings clearly reflect the constraints (time, money and materials) placed on
publicly funded housing construction during the period. Just prior to and during the war, the Lanham Act of 1940 provided $150 million to the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
, which built approximately 625,000 units of housing in conjunction with local authorities nationwide. These were highly sought after and company managers were the most likely to be able to procure housing in Atchison Village.
Due to
racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
,
minorities fared very poorly in gaining housing.
They often lived in shacks, in the crates that brought the raw materials to the city, in trailers, or in automobiles. They and other lower income earning workers were lucky when they were able to move to barrack-like dormitories constructed for the mass of World War II workers.
The Richmond Housing Authority was selected to be the first authority in the country to manage a defense project. Atchison Village represents one of 20 public housing projects built in Richmond before and during World War II. Constructed in 1941 as Richmond's first public defense housing project, it is the only project funded by the Lanham Act that still exists in Richmond, and one of the few in the nation not destroyed after the war.
Today, Atchison Village is a collection of privately-owned houses managed by a
cooperative
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
of the homeowners. While most of the dormitories and other low income housing of World War II are gone, Atchison Village, built as permanent housing, remains.
Kaiser Richmond Field Hospital
Prior to the invasion of Europe in June 1944, more Americans were dying in Home Front accidents than on World War II battlefields.
Henry J. Kaiser
Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...
, founder of the Richmond Shipyards, recognized that only a healthy work force could meet his deadlines and construction needs. He institutionalized a revolutionary idea, pre-paid medical care for workers, which soon expanded beyond workers. For many workers, this was the first time they had seen a doctor.
The Kaiser Richmond Field Hospital for the Richmond Shipyards was financed by the
U.S. Maritime Commission, and opened on August 10, 1942.
By August 1944, 92.2 percent of all Richmond shipyard employees had joined the plan, the first voluntary group plan in the country to feature group medical practice, prepayment and substantial medical facilities on such a large scale. By 1990,
Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente (; KP), commonly known simply as Kaiser, is an American integrated managed care consortium, based in Oakland, California, United States, founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. Kaiser P ...
was still the country's largest nonprofit HMO.
In part due to wartime materials rationing, the Field Hospital is a single-story wood-frame structure designed in a simple modernist mode. The Field Hospital operated as a Kaiser Permanente hospital until closing in 1995, after a new hospital was built downtown.
Maritime and Ruth Powers Child Development Centers
![WWII daycare Richmond CA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/WWII_daycare_Richmond_CA.jpg)
The Maritime and Ruth Powers Child Development Centers were two of approximately 35
nursery school
A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school ...
units of varying sizes established in the Richmond area during World War II in order to provide child care for women working in the Kaiser shipyards. The Maritime center was funded and constructed by the Maritime Commission as part of a larger development that also included housing, an
elementary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...
and a
fire station
__NOTOC__
A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire h ...
. The temporary housing was demolished after the war but a larger permanent housing complex remains as do the other buildings.
The Maritime Child Development Center, a wood frame, modernist style building operated by the Richmond School District, incorporated progressive educational programming, and was staffed with
nutritionist A nutritionist is a person who advises others on matters of food and nutrition and their impacts on health. Some people specialize in particular areas, such as sports nutrition, public health, or animal nutrition, among other disciplines. In many c ...
s,
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
s and certified teachers. It had a capacity of 180 children per day. At its peak, with 24,500 women on the Kaiser payroll, Richmond's citywide child care program maintained a total daily attendance of 1,400 children. Unlike the federally funded
WPA
WPA may refer to:
Computing
*Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard
*Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing
* Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada
* Windows Performance An ...
day care facilities implemented during the
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
, the World War II centers were not intended for use by the destitute, but for working mothers.
The Kaiser-sponsored Child Care Centers, particularly those at Kaiser's industrial sites in
Vanport, Oregon
Vanport, sometimes referred to as Vanport City or Kaiserville, was a city of wartime public housing in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States, between the contemporary Portland, Oregon, Portland city boundary and the Columbia River. It was destr ...
, and
Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County. Incorporated in 1857, Vancouver has a population of 190,915 as of the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Was ...
, gained a reputation for innovative and high quality child care. The center is still in operation today.
Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park
Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park, named in honor of local community activist
Lucretia W. Edwards, honors the wartime contributions made by the Bay Area Shipyards during World War II.
In addition to the local
Richmond Shipyards
The four Richmond Shipyards, in the city of Richmond, California, United States, were run by Permanente Metals and part of the Kaiser Shipyards. In World War II, Richmond built more ships than any other shipyard, turning out as many as three ships ...
, shipworker's bootprints with
plaques set in the sidewalks and long low seating walls point visitors to the other Bay Area shipyards.
The following inscriptions are engraved into the concrete walls:
*
Bethlehem San Francisco – The only privately owned shipyard in the nation to operate a submarine repair base, this 16th Street yard overhauled 31 subs in two years.
*
Moore Dry Dock handled the difficult jobs of production, repair and conversion that slowed overall output in other yards.
*
Hunter Point Naval Dry Dock – Hunter Point repaired 600 fighting and support ships.
*
Mare Island Naval Shipyard
The Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY) was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. It is located northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, California. The Napa River goes through the Mare Island Strait and separates th ...
– Mare Island built more than 400 vessels. Mare Island Naval Shipyard set a shipbuilding record for a destroyer that was never broken completing the
USS ''Ward'' in just 17 days.
*
Marinship
Marinship Corporation was a shipbuilding company of the United States during World War II, created to build the shipping required for the war effort. Founded in 1942, the shipyard built 93 cargo ships and oil tankers, before ending operations 1 ...
– The 75,000 Americans who poured into Marinship during the war years build 93 ships.
Nystrom Elementary School
The
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 is a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill funding the U.S. federal government for the 2023 fiscal year. It includes funding for a range of domestic and foreign policy priorities, including support for ...
added Nystrom Elementary School of the
West Contra Costa Unified School District
The West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD; formerly known as Richmond School District) is the school district for western Contra Costa County, California. It is based in Richmond, California. In addition to Richmond, the district co ...
to the park. The building was built to accommodate families who moved to Richmond to work at the Kaiser Shipyards.
See also
*
Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial
The Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial is a memorial dedicated in 1994 recognizing the dead of the Port Chicago disaster, and the critical role played by Port Chicago, California during World War II, in serving as the main facility ...
*
*
World War II United States Merchant Navy
World War II United States Merchant Navy was the largest civilian Navy in the world, which operated during World War II. With the United States fighting a world war in all the world oceans, the demand for cargo and fuel was very high. Cargo and ...
References
Notes
General Management Plan/Environmental Assessment National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
, NPS-August 10, 2008
* General Management Plan Summary. NPS 499 / 104062, September 2010.
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
External links
*
Rosie the Riveter Trust, the non-profit partner to Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front NHPFord-National Parks Foundation Site
All of the following are filed under Richmond, Contra Costa County, CA:
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosie The Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park
Parks in Richmond, California
National Historical Parks of the United States
National Park Service areas in California
San Francisco Bay Trail
1940s in California
American women civilians in World War II
History of the San Francisco Bay Area
United States home front during World War II
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in California
National Register of Historic Places in Richmond, California
Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in California
Water transportation on the National Register of Historic Places
World War II on the National Register of Historic Places in California
Protected areas established in 2000
2000 establishments in California
Historic American Engineering Record in California
Tourist attractions in Contra Costa County, California
History of women in California