“We Can Do It!” Rosie the Riveter Poster

This iconic poster, featuring a symbolic character who came to be known as “Rosie the Riveter,” has become emblematic of the widespread participation of women in war industries during World War II. Although it is not absolutely certain who the model for the poster was, the most likely candidate is thought to be Naomi Parker Fraley (1921–2018), who worked on aircraft assembly at the Naval Air Station Alameda in California, but other candidates have been proposed. The poster was commissioned by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and distributed by the War Production Coordinating Committee. The poster is often thought of as the “Rosie the Riveter” poster, but the name Rosie does not appear on J. Howard Miller’s poster. In 1943, however, a popular song titled “Rosie the Riveter” was released, and that year Norman Rockwell produced an image for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post that included a somewhat similar figure of a working woman whose name, Rosie, was written on her lunchbox. In this way, Miller’s poster became associated with “Rosie the Riveter.”