she can found everywhere from posters to t-shirts to coffee muds clad in blue overalls hair wrapped
in red and white bandana glaring determinantly as she rolls up her sleeve flexes her bicep and
declares we can do it since her introduction during the second world war the figure of
rosie the riveter has become a feminist icon a potent symbol not only of the thousands of women
who flooded into munitions factories and other non-traditional jobs in support of the war effort
but of the limitless capabilities of all women but how did this 80 year old propaganda character
become the iconic figure we know and love today was rosie the riveter ever an actual person or
just the product of some artist's imagination no more real than the scowling finger-pointing figure
of uncle sam well as with everything the answer is complicated but also fascinating the injury of the
united states into world war ii in december 1941 saw the induction of over three million men into
the u.s armed forces severely depleting the ranks of industrial workers needed to produce tanks
ships aircraft and other war material to make up for this shortfall the united states government
turned as it had during the first world war to a huge largely untapped pool of labor women the
impact of this policy on the american economy was staggering in 1940 women made up 13 of the labor
force by 1945 this figure had risen to nearly 37 percent the combination of military mobilization
and the entry of some two million women into the economy also accomplished what nearly a
decade of depression era new deal social programs could not dropping unemployment from 6 percent to
nearly zero however contrary to our popular image of the war most working women were not employed
in factory production rather the vast majority worked in clerical or secretarial roles that were
granting them new opportunities to advance to better paid positions some hundred thousand
also served with the american red cross as nurses while 350 000 join the american women's volunteer
services a vast organization that provided dozens of services including motor transport
canteens and child care for industrial workers legal advice telephone switchboard operators
and the selling of war bonds and stamps but more than 300 thousand women did take up war
production jobs recently vacated by men serving overseas for instance fifty thousand served in
the women's land army as agricultural laborers a hundred thousand in military auxiliary divisions
like the women's army corps or wacs and the navy women's accepted for volunteer emergency service
or waves while nearly a thousand female pilots formed the women's auxiliary service pilots
or wasps who trained combat pilots test flew newly manufactured aircraft and ferried them
from factories to overseas military bases but the most famous wartime female workers were the 85 000
members of the women ordinance department or wows who were engaged in the production of aircraft
tanks rifles artillery shells and other weapons initially however many women were reluctant
to leave domestic life and join the workforce so government propaganda department set about
finding suitable role models to drive recruitment and one of the first such mascots and the template
for rosie the riveter was not an american but a canadian like the rest of the british commonwealth
canada had been at war since september 1939 and thus gotten a head start in war production
and the mass employment of women one of the largest armament manufacturers in the country was
john inglis and company which was contracted by the canadian government to manufacture some 40
000 bren light machine guns the bulk of production took place at the company's plant on
strachan avenue in toronto and it is here in 1941 that photographers from the national film board
discovered 19 year old veronica foster one of 14 000 women working on the bren gun production line
taken by her youthful beauty the nfb decided to make foster the face of canadian war production
photographing her working at the english plant and in more casual settings like playing baseball
or swing dancing the most famous of all these images shows foster inner work coveralls and
bandana lounging in front of a completed bren gun while coolly smoking a cigarette
even though foster herself did not smoke and only lit up for this one photograph known across
the country as ronnie the bren gun girl foster appeared on recruitment posters and in magazines
newsreels and propaganda films the campaign proved extraordinarily effective for by war's
end nearly 800 000 canadian women were employed in munitions work after the war foster left inglis
and embarked on a successful musical career as lead singer of the popular dance band mart kenny
and his western gentleman however the famous american image of the female munitions worker
rolling up her sleeve and proclaiming we can do it would not appear until 1943 designed by artist
j howard miller the poster was part of a series produced by the westinghouse electric corporation
to display in its factories yet despite its now iconic status the poster is not quite what it
appears to be for one thing it was designed not to recruit women into the workforce but
rather to boost morale and promote productivity among westinghouse employees indeed the image
was only displayed on westinghouse shop floors for two weeks from february the 15th to the 28th
1943 before being replaced by other posters in the series thus far from being a popular and beloved
wartime image the poster was only ever seen by a handful of workers before disappearing into total
obscurity it only resurfaced in the 1980s when reagan-era budget cuts forced the u.s national
archives to dig through its collections for images to license the newly rediscovered poster
was printed on millions of postcards coffee mugs t-shirts and other memorabilia quickly becoming
a beloved piece of world war ii iconography and a powerful feminist symbol further complicating the
myth at the time of its printing the we can do it poster was in no way connected with the name rosie
the riveter that that particular moniker would not enter american pop culture until miller's
image had already come and gone in the form of a song written by red evans and john jacobs recorded
by multiple artists including the four vagabonds and swing band leader k kaiser rosie the riveter
became a nationwide hit its lyrics extolling the skill and work ethic of the ideal female munitions
worker stating all the day long whether rain or shine she's part of the assembly line she's making
history working for victory rosie the riveter on may 29 1943 another iconic wartime image
appeared on the cover of the saturday evening post painted by legendary illustrator norman
rockwell modeled on michelangelo's painting of the prophet isaiah on the sistine chapel ceiling the
cover depicts a powerfully built female riveter confidently munching on a sandwich her rivet
gun cradled in her lap and her overalls covered in patriotic symbols including a v for victory button
blue star mother's pin and an army navy e-service production award pin and just in case that was
a little too subtle the woman sits in front of a giant american flag while her boot stomps on
a copy of adolf hitler's mein kumpf in another clever details the women's lunch pail is labeled
rosie a direct reference to the then popular song the song and the image soon became inextricably
linked and an american icon was born but was there ever a real rosie a flesh and blood munitions
worker who directly inspired the popular character well maybe according to red evans and john jacobs
the title of their popular song was chosen for its alliterative appeal and not based on any
particular person the model for norman rockwell's magazine cover however is known it's 19 year old
mary louise doyle a neighbor of rockwells who worked as a telephone switchboard operator not a
riveter amusingly rockwell painted his rosie with a heavier physique than his model and later phone
doyle to apologize for making you into a sort of giant the model for j howard miller's we can do it
poster however remains the subject of considerable debate and over the years several women have come
forward claiming to be the inspiration for the iconic image for many years the original rosie was
thought to be rose will monroe who worked at the ford motor company's willow run aircraft plant in
ypsilanti michigan in 1942 monroe was discovered by actor walter pidgeon during a tour of the
factory and was hired to appear in a short film selling warbonds however as the miller poster
was created before the name rosie the riveter had entered the american lexicon the connection
to rose monroe is an unlikely coincidence and was probably made long after the fact another popular
candidate was another michigan woman geraldine hoff doyle who worked in a navy machine shop in
the 1980s doyle saw a photograph of a bandana wearing machinist leaning over a lathe and
recognized her younger self the image bore such a striking resemblance to the miller poster that
by the 1990s doyle was widely cited in the media as the inspiration for the image the claim even
appearing in her 2010 obituary however other than a strong resemblance doyle had no solid proof of
the connection furthermore she only worked in war production for two weeks quitting for pier that a
sharp accident would end her career as an amateur cellist it was not until shortly after doyle's
death that scholar james j kimball identified a more likely candidate twenty-year-old naomi
parker a machinist at the naval air station in alameda california after five years of searching
through various archives kimball unearthed a copy of the photograph long thought to be
of geraldine doyle but whose original label bore the rather questionable caption
pretty naomi parker is as easy to look at as overtime pay on the week's check and
she's a good example of an old contention that glamour is what goes into the clothes
and not on the clothes pre-war fashion frills are only a discord in wartime clothing for women naomi
wears heavy shoes black suit and dick turban to keep her hair out of harm's way we mean the
machine you dope yet despite this discovery there is still no firm evidence that miller who died
in 1985 used parker's image as inspiration for his poster nonetheless by the time of her death
in january 2018 at the age of 96 naomi parker had largely displaced geraldine doyle in the media as
the original rosie the riveter whatever the case the image of rosie the riveter has far outlasted
and outgrown her original inspiration and purpose becoming an enduring symbol of the american home
front and the key role women played during the second world war however it is an image which
conceals an uncomfortable truth but as soon as the conflict ended the massive wartime propaganda
machine switched gears from convincing women to join the workforce to convincing them to leave
it despite women's vital contributions to the war effort their involvement was seen as a temporary
wartime expedient by many employers who pressured their female employees to return to domestic
life and return their jobs the men returning home from the front those who chose to stay were often
demoted subjected to severe pay cuts or dismissed outright with many employers claiming that
production processes had changed so radically that female workers were no longer qualified almost
overnight the number of women in the industrial economy fell near pre-war levels while the
post-war zeitgeist re-emphasized their social role as wives and mothers but the memory and spirit of
rosie the riveter never fully went away and after 80 years of her sister's contributions not being
officially recognized in 2019 an act was signed collectively awarding the congressional gold medal
to all women who worked in armaments production during the second world war but the true legacy
of rosie the riveter is in how she and her sisters forever changed the nature of the workplace and
women's role within it whether driving a tractor on a farm ferrying a bomber aircraft overseas or
welding together a tank the women workers of the second world war proved once and for all
that whatever a man could do they could do just as well and there was no turning back