Santa Barbara’s Very Own Rosie the Riveter
Women’s History Month Is the Perfect Time to Introduce Harriette Rees Azlein
“The enemy was rampant and still on the march of easy conquest,” reported the new Aircraft Year Book in 1943.
At 22, Harriette Rees was single and living with her parents on West Sola Street when she learned of a new manufacturing plant opening on the Eastside, hiring women, with good pay. She walked “right over” to the National Guard Armory on East Canon Perdido, across the street from Santa Barbara High School, from which she’d recently graduated in 1940.
The Armory had emptied out, with men being called to active duty as World War II raged across the globe. In the Armory’s vacant rooms, Lockheed Aircraft of Burbank was opening one of its 18 aircraft manufacturing plants in Southern California, fabricating parts and subassemblies for its Hudson Bomber, a favorite of the British Royal Air Force, and by license from Boeing Aircraft of Seattle, the B-17 Flying Fortress — a key fighter against German targets.
