SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Phyllis Gould, one of the millions of women who worked in defense plants in World War II and who later relentlessly fought to honor those “Rosie the Riveters,” has died. She was 99.

The San Francisco Chronicle says Gould, who lived in Fairfax, north of San Francisco, died last week.

During the war, some 6 million women joined the workforce as men went into the armed forces.

Gould was a welder at a San Francisco Bay Area shipyard.

After the war, she fought tenaciously to honor her co-workers, leading to the creation of national Rosie the Riveter Day and a Congressional Gold Medal to be issued next year.