 The film's title refers to "Rosie the Riveter", the cultural icon that represented women who manned the manufacturing plants which produced munitions and material during World War II.Connie Field got the idea for the film from a California Rosie the Riveter reunion, and, with grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other charitable sources, conducted interviews with many hundreds of women who had gone into war work.Out of these she chose five representatives—three black, two white—all marvelously lively, intelligent, and articulate women who recall their experiences with a mixture of pleasant nostalgia and detached bitterness.