Nell Giles Ahern was sophisticated and elegant, which made her choice to enter the gritty field of defense factory work all the more surprising. As a reporter for The Boston Globe, she specifically signed up to work in a factory in order to document the experience for the public. The latter half of Ahern’s career paints a picture that femininity was incredibly important to her, as she wrote columns and even an instructional book for teenage girls entitled Susan Be Smooth. Little is known of her early life, other than she grew up in Oklahoma City and attended Hendrix College in Arkansas. Ahern decided to work for the summer in a factory producing instruments for airplanes early in her journalism career. She described her motivation in her factory diary, Punch In, Susie!, that culminated from her experience as a Rosie, where she wrote: “The way to find out about women in war is to get a real job… not a phony one.. And in such a factory as this one I’m working in. One day doesn’t give you the answers...but in one day you know you’re caught up in the heart of what’s happening.”

  Despite her genuine intentions, she experienced challenges, including incidents of classism. The factory girls nicknamed her “Deb” as she had a college degree, short for “debutant.” Ahern reported that though tensions sometimes ran high among the women, fights rarely lasted for long. Though she got into a physical altercation with one girl, she later created a pool to purchase a nice wedding present for the same colleague. Her reports of arguments and even brawls between the women were likely a result of the pressures these women faced. 

There was an immense need for exact precision in the flight instruments to “the thousandth of an inch,” or roughly the width of a strand of hair. Wasting materials or making mistakes that slipped through the assembly line was one way to help the Axis Powers, and Ahern reported that “a girl told me she felt like a murderer every time she made a mistake!” This kind of pressure was not unique during the war, but it is not often attributed to women during this era. Such a burden of life and death is usually attributed to combat decisions or to male engineers working on the Manhattan Project, but Rosies felt that same responsibility and power while creating the materials necessary to win the war. 

Despite these character traits, it was important to Ahern to note that all factory workers were not the same. Some were more willing to put in overtime than others, just as in any other workplace. Still, Ahern described that individuals on the assembly line worked to motivate one another and remind each other of their purpose. Ahern explained that everyday when a worker would slow down, someone would turn to them and state the reminder: “You know, there’s a war on.” She went on to explain that these women were complex individuals, just like the men who would use these materials abroad: “I don't want to give you the impression that people who work in a war production factory are all nice and sweet and patriotic, any more than you must think that all soldiers are brave.” Here, Giles’ comments foreshadow the greater Rosie the Riveter myth and narrative. She asks that women not be typically cast with simple character traits, as men had the luxury of having nuanced personalities according to those around them. 

Nell Giles Ahern & Rosie the Riveter

After her service in a factory, Giles went on to publish more books. While she never wrote about Rosie in particular, one can infer some of her thoughts regarding the Rosie image from this excerpt: “too many articles about women in war written by people who’ve never been a woman in war… Too many pictures of beautiful girls posed on the wings of planes with glowing caption to make you think that war is glamorous.” Ahern’s assertion is supported in that all of the iterations of Rosie the Riveter were created by men. The work ethic Giles described in her book translated into a true patriotism that wasn’t always pretty and certainly wasn’t classically feminine according to the American standard at the time. 

Citations

Giles and Dunn, ix.

[1] Obituary of Nell Giles Ahern, The Boston Globe, April 12, 2003, Ancestory.com, Page 30, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/443000654/.

[1] Giles and Dunn, 2.

[1] Ibid., xi.

[1] Ibid., xi; xiii.

[1] Ibid., 3.

[1] Ibid., 29.

[1] Ibid., 46.

[1] Ibid.

[1] Giles and Dunn, 1-2.

[1] Ibid., xiv.

[1] “Nell Giles, in Person Thursday,” Lowell Sun and Citizen-Leader, June 4, 1941, p. 3. https://access-newspaperarchive-com.fcpl.idm.oclc.org/us/massachusetts/lowell/lowell-sun/1941/06-04/page-43/.

[1] Giles and Dunn, 146.