Refresh

I spent the day (Saturday) at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial dedication at the site of the Henry Kaiser Richmond California Shipyards. It is the first part of what will become the World War II/Homefront National Historic Park operated by the US National Park Service, the same folks who have the Minute Man Park in Massachusetts as well as a number of other historic parks around the US. Tomorrow, the President is scheduled to sign the enabling legislation that was passed by Congress unanimously so the park will have an official identity. It has only taken two years to reach this condition, a record for speed and it says something about the width and depth of interest and support.

The park is to honor all of the Homefront workers of WW II, men, women, in all sorts of industries. As the planning for the Visitors Center becomes more concrete, I am increasingly interested in fnding examples of "peoples music" for the Center, not just the (very enjoyable) big band music of the era. I have found photographs of traditional musicians performing in the yards at Kaiser. THese were shipyard workers. I will bet that there were a lot of trasnplanted country musicians who found themselves working in war plants and I will also bet that they continued their own tradition of shaping old songs to fit new circumstances as well as creating new songs.

And thank you again to Kendall, Catspaw and lamarca for their thoughts. I am refreshing the thread in the hopes that perhaps there are some new people, too, who may have some ideas for this new memorial.

Sourdough