Riveting & Socializing in the Shipyard postcard

This is a Coca-Cola postcard printed in 1944. It looks like a take on Rosie the Riveter at the shipyard.

This reminds of Helen Dortch Longstreet.* Have you hear of General Longstreet’s wife at Bell Bomber during the WWII? Helen was born in 1863 and in time married Confederate General James Longstreet. Of course by the time of World War II the general had passed on. At age 80, in 1943, Helen took riveting training and went to work for Bell Bomber here in Marietta. She didn’t do much riveting but did do a lot of socializing. If a supervisor spoke to her about her lack of productivity she didn’t hesitate to call one of her many connections, which included President FDR – then the supervisor would find that he was the one in hot water.

She did what she damn well pleased. I think management finally created a job for her as moral director or something.

*From the book Cobb County, Georgia and the Origins of the Suburban South, a Twentieth Century History by Thomas Allen Scott, pp167-68.