Rosie the Riveter Memorial Project History

The Rosie the Riveter Memorial: Honoring American Women's Labor During WWII is the first in the nation to celebrate and interpret women's contributions to the Home Front. Sited at the location of the former Kaiser Shipyards, the memorial was constructed during Summer 2000 in Rosie the Riveter Memorial Park in Richmond's Marina Bay neighborhood.

A dedication ceremony was held on October 14th, 2000.The Memorial design is the result of a regional competition was sponsored by the City of Richmond in late 1997 to select an artist to create the memorial. Competition announcements were sent to over 3,000 artists and arts organization in Washington, Oregon and California. Seventy-four West Coast artists and artist teams submitted qualifications for the Rosie the Riveter Memorial: Honoring American Women's Labor During WWII.

Many of the applicants wrote about their own connections to this history, including several artists who had worked in the shipyards themselves. The number of responses was gratifying, but their quality was even more outstanding. A distinguished selection panel of community representatives and arts professionals was formed to review applications and select the finalists on January 16, 1998.

The Rosie the Riveter Selection Panel consists of community activist Lucretia Edwards, former Richmond Planning Director Jim Farah, artist Mildred Howard; landscape architect Owen Lang, historian Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, businesswoman Mindell Penn, artist Larry Sultan, and artist Hershell West. The panel performed the heroic task of narrowing the applications to a small group that has been invited to develop proposals.

The finalists were Beliz Brother and Ann Van Dyne (Seattle); Bella Feldman and Susan Leibovitz Steinman (Bay Area); Cheryl Riley (SF Bay Area); Susan Schwartzenberg and Cheryl Barton (SF Bay Area); and Ilona Sturm and Wang Po Shu (Bay Area). The artists had the opportunity to come to Richmond for a site visit, during which they met with community representatives and City of Richmond staff.

The finalists' proposals, which included detailed drawings of their design and a preliminary budget, were due on April 24th, 1998. A public exhibition of the finalists proposals was held in Richmond City Hall in April 1998. The public was invited to review the proposals and share their comments, which were forwarded to the Selection Panel. The Selection Panel reconvened to select the proposal that best met the Memorial goals, including the needs of the community and site and unanimously recommended the design by Schwartzenberg and Barton.