Veronica Foster

"Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl" posing with a finished Bren gun

Veronica Foster, (January 2, 1922 - 2000), popularly known as "Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl", was a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and materiel during World War II.

Foster worked for John Inglis Co. Ltd producing Bren light machine guns on a production line on Strachan Avenue in Toronto, Ontario.[1] She can be seen as the Canadian precursor[2] to the American cutural icon Rosie the Riveter.

She became popular after a series of propaganda posters were produced; most images featured her working for the war effort, but others depicted more casual settings like Foster dancing the jitterbug or attending a dinner party.[3]

After the war, she worked as a singer with Mart Kenney and His Western Gentlemen, where she met trombonist George Guerrette, whom she subsequently married.

References

  1. ↑ All Aboard for the Future, Toronto Star, August 14, 2005
  2. ↑ Online MIKAN no. 3195801 (1 item), May 1941, retrieved Oct 27, 2012
  3. ↑ Canadian War Industry during the Second World War, Library and Archives Canada
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