To honour those women who took up the mantle when men went off to war... Before Rosie the Riveter (1942, fictional, USA), there was Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl (1941, real, Canadian). Veronica Foster, popularly known as Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl, was a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and materiel during World War II. Foster worked for John Inglis Co. Ltd producing Bren light machine guns on a production line on Strachan Avenue in Toronto, Ontario. She can be seen as the Canadian precursor to the American fictional propaganda tool, Rosie the Riveter. Veronica became popular after a series of propaganda posters were produced; most images featured her working for the war effort, but others depicted more casual settings like Foster dancing the jitterbug or attending a dinner party. After the war, she worked as a model and as a singer with Mart Kenney and His Western Gentlemen (Canadas premier dance band during the 1930s and 1940s). Trivia: Mart Kenney was the grandfather of Jason Kenney. youtu.be/-E0KvWve-9g
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 16:10:10 +0000
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