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PAGE 6
MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NATIONAL
$1.5 million needed by May 1 to save Rosie's plant
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
The B-17G "Yankee Lady" sits in front of the old Willow Run Bomber Plant at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti Township, Mich. At President Franklin Roosevelt's urging, Ford Motor Co. switched from making cars to planes at the factory where workers produced one an hour — nearly 9,000 B-24 Liberator bombers in all — to help win World War II.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT — A group trying to save the Detroit-area factory where Rosie the Riveter became an icon of American female empowerment during World War II said Friday that it must raise $1.5 million in the next few weeks to save the site from being demolished.
Those behind the Save the Bomber Plant campaign said they have raised $6.5 million of the $8 million they need by May 1 to buy the Willow Run Bomber Plant west of Detroit. They want to convert the factory where Rose Will Monroe and other workers built B-24 bombers into a museum dedicated to aviation and the countless other Rosies who toiled at similar U.S. plants.
The group has received several extensions by which to acquire a portion of the old plant, but the time has come to either raise the necessary money or see it relegated to the history books, said Dennis Norton, the president of the Michigan Aerospace Foundation and one of the leaders of the effort to save the plant.
"They need an answer from us," Norton said, referring to the trust set up to oversee properties owned by a pre-bankruptcy General Motors. "Demolition is underway, and they can't stop demolishing the plant, then come back later."
Monroe, a Kentucky native who moved to Michigan during the war, starred as herself in the film and became one of the best-known figures of that era. She represented the thousands of Rosies who took factory jobs making munitions, weaponry and other things while the nation's men were off fighting in Europe and the Pacific.
Norton and his team want to separate and preserve 175,000 square feet of the Ypsilanti Township, Mich., site and convert it into a new, expanded home for the Yankee Air Museum, which would move
from its current location less than two miles away. Included would be the iconic 150-footwide doors through which thousands of bombers left the plant to play their role in winning the war.
Although women performed what had been male-dominated roles in plants all over the country during the war, it was Monroe, who was one of an untold number of women in the Willow Run plant's 40,000-person workforce, who caught the eye of Hollywood
let go once the war was over and the soldiers returned home, they had shown that women were capable of doing jobs that had traditionally been done by only men. An illustrated poster of a determined-looking Rosie the Riveter rolling up her sleeve with the slogan, "We can do it!" became an iconic symbol of female empowerment for American women.
Although many Rosies were
producers casting a "riveter" for a government film about the war effort at home.
The Willow Run factory went back to making automobiles after the war ended, and it did
so for more than a half-century before closing in 2010.
Michael Montgomery, a consultant on the fundraising effort, said it's important to save the plant where Monroe and her fellow workers labored because it is "one of the birthplaces of modern America." In addition to churning out a bomber every hour, he said, workers of different races and sexes worked side-by-side for equal pay — an achievement that would be acknowledged at a reconstituted Yankee Air
Museum.
Montgomery says he is "guardedly optimistic," that the group can raise the rest of the money over the next few weeks, and Norton gave the group "a 75 percent chance of pulling it off."
Meetings with some "major donor prospects" have been scheduled, Montgomery said, and the campaign is hosting two public events over the next eight days designed to generate some cash as well as awareness.
MUSEUM
Animal mummies on display in Calif.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Dogs and cats are often beloved family members in current culture, but animals held such a prominent place in ancient Egyptian society that tens of millions were mummified, some going into the pharaohs' tombs to rest eternally in the company of their kings.
members.
Others had their own special cemeteries, where they were buried in coffins as elaborately carved as those of royal family
Dozens of the best surviving specimens have taken up residence at Orange County's Bowers Museum as the centerpiece of "Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt."
There's a dog so well detailed that even its floppy ears are prominent. An ancient cat has been laid to rest with its little paws drawn across its body, creating an image eerily reminiscent of a human's funeral pose.
"It itt shows how closely Egyptians thought of animals on some basic level as being very similar to human beings," said Edward Bleiberg, the exhibition's curator. "The Egyptians believed that animals had souls."
ing drawings and sculptures, as well as the mummified remains of dogs, cats, birds, snakes and crocodiles. Many are wrapped in intricately patterned linens, and some have been placed in sarcophaguses carved to resemble how the animal looked in life.
But soulful or not, most people — other than a king or queen — couldn't afford to keep a dog or cat around just for companionship in ancient times, Bleiberg said.
To give museum visitors a better look at what's underneath the wrappings, the mummies have been CT scanned and the scans used to create three-dimensional images.
In all, the exhibition contains more than 100 items, includ-
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A cat cottin with mummy is displayed as part of the exhibit "Souful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt," at the Orange County's Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif.
KANSAN COMICS
Presented by: Jayhawk Buddy System
Jayhawks ACT:
A: Agree to stay with your buddy.
B: Check in with your buddy regularly.
C: Take charge to return home together.
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