[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 131 (Tuesday, July 27, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E825]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    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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