Art of war: At WWII California shipyard, what Rosie the Riveter's kids painted
RICHMOND, Calif. -- Checking a rumor, retired UC Berkeley Professor Joe Fischer was poking around the cluttered basement of the Richmond Museum of History and uncovered a long-forgotten "gold mine."
Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously preserved children's paintings and collages.
But instead of children's typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing portraits of Hitler, burning airplanes nose-diving into the ocean, a sad-looking girl with long black braids next to a Star of David, empty houses and dozens of intricately detailed battleships -- some with guns blazing, others sinking.
The paintings, done by children in the Kaiser shipyard child care centers, tell the story of World War II with the simplicity and poignancy of a child's perspective...
These were the children who spent 12 hours a day in day care while their parents were fighting the war. Their moms were models for Rosie the Riveter, toiling long hours in the shipyards, while many of their dads were battling German fascism and Japanese imperialism overseas...
In all, 27,000 of the 90,000 Kaiser shipyard workers were women, so organized child care was imperative.
"This is a remarkably vivid part of the home-front story," said Lucy Lawliss, resource director at Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond. "These children were seeing the home front and were able to record it from their perspective."
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Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously preserved children's paintings and collages.
But instead of children's typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing portraits of Hitler, burning airplanes nose-diving into the ocean, a sad-looking girl with long black braids next to a Star of David, empty houses and dozens of intricately detailed battleships -- some with guns blazing, others sinking.
The paintings, done by children in the Kaiser shipyard child care centers, tell the story of World War II with the simplicity and poignancy of a child's perspective...
These were the children who spent 12 hours a day in day care while their parents were fighting the war. Their moms were models for Rosie the Riveter, toiling long hours in the shipyards, while many of their dads were battling German fascism and Japanese imperialism overseas...
In all, 27,000 of the 90,000 Kaiser shipyard workers were women, so organized child care was imperative.
"This is a remarkably vivid part of the home-front story," said Lucy Lawliss, resource director at Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond. "These children were seeing the home front and were able to record it from their perspective."