The publication is reproduced in full below:
IN RECOGNITION OF PHYLLIS GOULD
______
HON. JACKIE SPEIER
of california
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, I rise along with my colleague, Jared Huffman, to honor the late Phyllis Gould, one of the Bay Area Rosie the Riveters whose work was essential for the United States and its allies to win the war. Phyllis passed away on July 20, 2021, just shy of her 100th birthday on October 7. We had the honor and pleasure to work with Phyllis on legislation that recognizes the immense contributions the Rosies have made to history.
Phyllis Mickey Gould was born at Camp Lewis, now Fort Lewis, Washington. Her father served in the Army for 30 years and received a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his service in France during the World War I. Back during that time, Phyllis liked to explain, women didn't plan a career at an early age, instead they learned to cook and sew and were expected to marry young and raise a family. World War II changed that. Men were drafted to fight the war, leaving the jobs building ships, planes and munitions vacant. More than ten million women nationwide stepped in. In July 1942, Phyllis became one of the first six women welders at Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, California. Soon she was followed by her two sisters who became a draftsman and a welder and by her mother who became a painter. The Richmond shipyard built a record 747 cargo ships. Phyllis worked as a welder until the end of the war.
The Rosies were iconized by a poster by Howard Miller which ironically didn't become famous until 40 years after its creation. It's a poster of a young woman with a polka dot bandana, rolling up her denim shirt sleeve, flexing her bicep and exclaiming ``We Can Do It!'' Miller was hired by Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee in 1942 to create a series of posters of inspirational images to boost worker morale. It was displayed only to Westinghouse employees in the Midwest for two weeks in 1943 and then disappeared. In the 1980s it was rediscovered, labeled Rosie the Riveter and became a symbol for American feminism.
For Phyllis, the Rosies never received the recognition they deserved, so she made it her life's mission to change that and this is how my colleagues and I came to know her. She was laser focused, feisty and tenacious. She emphatically stated, ``The military could not have done what it did without what we did! Every item they needed to succeed--a woman helped produce!!'' Her ultimate dream was to have a National Rosie Holiday, a plaque at veterans memorials across the country, a statue on the Washington Mall, an annual special commemorative coin, and a ticker tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York. You see, Phyllis always aimed high. For her personally, she said, she wanted to be able to say on her gravestone: Mission Accomplished!
While she didn't accomplish everything on her ambitious dream list, she accomplished a lot in her decades of advocacy for these war sheroes. In 2014, she and five other Rosies were invited to the White House and met with President Obama and then-Vice President Biden, even snatching a hug from him. Congressman Huffman carried, and I cosponsored, a bill that designated March 21 as Rosie the Riveter Day during Women's History Month. It has to be renewed each year, but we do have a national holiday, thanks in large part to Phyllis' work. I carried, and Congressman Huffman cosponsored, the Rosie the Riveter Congressional Gold Medal Act which was signed into law in December 2020. The U.S. mint is now in the process of designing the medal and Phyllis was deeply involved in sharing her design ideas with the mint.
In 2019, Phyllis and two fellow Rosies traveled to France for the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. In a letter to Senator Schumer, she wrote that the people of France honored their work with parades, a banquet, gifts and a medal. In 2000, The Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park opened its doors in Richmond, due to the advocacy of Phyllis and her fellow Rosies.
Madam Speaker, Phyllis Gould never stopped fighting for the Rosies and she refused to take no for an answer. She was fiercely independent. She lived alone in her apartment and drove a stick shift truck up until a few days before she fell ill at 99. She proudly displayed photos of the herself with the President and Vice President and Members of Congress. She didn't have a computer or cell phone, but she made countless phone calls from her landline and wrote countless handwritten letters to federal and state elected officials to plead for proper recognition of these war heroes. In our book, she has permission to write Mission Accomplished on her gravestone.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 131
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