“Gladys the Riveter” will kick off the 2010-2011 “Lunch in the Library” series at the Seward County Community College/Area Technical School Library on Monday, October 4. Living historian Teresa Bachman gives her interpretation of the mythic “Rosie the Riveter,” basing it on the stories of her aunts, who worked at the Boeing airplane plant in Wichita during World War II, and on studies of the realities of factory work and the World War II home front in general.
Step back in time to Boeing’s 1945 wartime aircraft plant where Gladys Haines, with rivet gun in hand, is working on a B-29 airplane. Gladys interrupts her work to speak to a group of new hires (the audience). With the men having gone to war, the women have stepped into the defense plants to do the work. As home-front heroes, women made the difference between victory and defeat. Gladys helps us understand their challenges (large gloves, overly friendly supervisors, exhaustion, child care) and pleasures (great pay, after-work recreation, helping in the war effort) of doing “men’s work” in the 1940s.
The performance will take place in the Seward County Community College/Area Technical School Library at noon on Monday, October 4. Bring your own lunch and we’ll provide the drinks and cookies. For more information on the event please contact Matthew Pannkuk at 620-417-1161.
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