Rosie the Riveter

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Dorothy Boggess is on the left of Ambassador Birgitta Tazelaar, Velma Long is on the right — Photo by Courtesy of the Dutch Embassy

In honor of the American icon “Rosie the Riveter,” the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands christened “Tulipa Rosie the Riveter” during Dutch tulip days at the Residence of Ambassador Brigitta Tazelaar.

The tulip exhibit celebrated the contributions of women who worked on the home front during World War II which serves as a living tribute to these remarkable women. “Rosie the Riveter” may have been an American phenomenon, but her influence stretches to the Netherlands through the war effort, post-war recovery and ongoing movements for gender equality.

“We always think about the soldiers. We’ve got The Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten which is a big cemetery in the south where a lot of allies from the US and Canada have been buried. There’s also the realization that it was not only the men who came over and fought, but they were able to fight because the women were actually in the factories in the US building those planes and building those tanks and artillery that was needed for the war. So there’s a lot of gratitude as well from the Netherlands regarding the role that the ‘Rosies’ played and we like to give attention to that here at the Embassy. We’ve done it before, but this year we’re going to do it through baptizing a tulip that is going to be called ‘Tulipa Rosie the Riveter.’”

Tulipa Rosie the Riveter Photo Courtesy of the Dutch Embassy

‘We did not have a defense industry in those days because we were a neutral country when we were invaded by the Germans, but we had women who were in the resistance and that’s, I think, the parallel that you see between the US and the Netherlands. They actually, let’s say, broke the ceiling. They showed that women can do more than baking fantastic cakes, but that they can actually be part of a working society.
The tulip breeders were willing to breed a special tulip for Rosie Riveter. It’s a light pink tulip standing tall with straight leaves. So I think it also represents very well strong character of the Rosies and the way they displayed it during the Second World War. I don’t how they actually breed new tulips. I guess they do something with the bulbs and put two bulbs together and something new comes out.