what is the thesis statement of we can do it poster by donkeyhotey brainly

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“We Can Do It!” Rhetorical Analysis

When prompted to choose a piece of rhetoric to analyze, one of the first pieces that came to mind was the famous, “We Can Do It!” poster, or more modernly nicknamed, Rosie the Riveter. This poster was created in 1942 as part of a series of posters created to boost morale in The United States of America during World War II. The exigence, or situation which prompted the creation of the rhetoric, was the low spirits of the American workers and society as a whole during the war. The poster, along with the many others created along with it, was created with the American workforce as its audience. The simple yet encouraging phrase, “we can do it” not only unites the audience as a single entity by the pronoun choice of “we”, but is also vague enough to reach each American despite their unique situation.

This poster is also shown to be a valuable piece of rhetoric when we relate it Lloyd Blitzer’s word in his article, “The Rhetorical Situation” stating, “A work of rhetoric is pragmatic; it comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself”. This poster was created in response to the crisis seen in The United States of America’s workforce during World War II. The lack of workers to fill important factory and labor based positions spurred the prompting of the American people to fill these spots for the betterment of their country and its economy. This poster was created for the sole purpose of responding to this problem and creating positive change.

While the, “We Can Do It!” poster can be classified as a valuable piece of rhetoric during the time period of its original publishing, it also had a significant impact in recent generations. In the 1980’s, the poster was rediscovered and connected to the modern day movement of feminism. Feminists, or supporters of women’s right and equality, used this piece of rhetoric to challenge the stereotype that men belonged in fields of manual labor, sparking discussion and support for equality. This common belief that many Americans had can also be considered a commonplace, as it was shared idea throughout many communities that viewed women lesser than men.

2 thoughts on ““We Can Do It!” Rhetorical Analysis”

Emily, I admire your choice of “Rosie the Riveter” as your intended rhetorical situation, especially because the “We Can Do It!” poster has been an American symbol and icon for years during and following World War II, having provided boosted spirits among workers and initiating proposals for women’s rights and feminist movements since its initial launch in 1942. I admire how you made sure to pinpoint the poster’s significance to the time period that it originated from and its sole purpose for creation, while you also emphasized its historically changing significances as observed in the 1980s in reference to women’s rights within the American workforce that are felt as widely influential to this day. This “full circle” idea is also made clear in your point about the “We Can Do It!” poster touching the lives of all Americans despite their particular and unobservable financial and emotional situations, as, whether said Americans were employed or unemployed at the time of World War II, the symbolism incorporated within Rosie the Riveter encouraged and inspired Americans to take steps forward in improving their states of mind and attitudes about the war and its relation to ultimate American life. I really like how you picked a rhetorical situation that is well known to modern-day Americans because of its great influence on American workers of the recent past, its rhetorical impact emphasized in ways that your audience can understand the poster’s significant holds on modern society and its working effects on the attitudes of American people in the workforce, men and women alike.

I really enjoyed how you linked the modern feminist movement to the women in the workforce (propaganda) movement of the 1940’s. I believe that there could have been a deeper rhetorical meaning and analysis of the use of the poster in both situations. In WW2, the poster was a propaganda piece by the US government to fill the hole, created by able-bodied men becoming soldiers, in the workforce so that products important to the military campaigns would be sustained throughout the war. In modern times, there is a very powerful impact in taking this message that was used to bring women into the workforce to give them the rights and equality that they have always deserved while working, and in everyday life.

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Old News, Vintage Photos & Nostalgic Stories

The real truth behind the iconic “we can do it” poster.

• Strangeness

We all know it, the bright yellow poster with a strong woman in work clothes and cute red scarf, encouraging her fellow ladies to join her in the war effort , because “They Can Do It” and they could do it and did it, but not thanks to this poster.

For years  the “We can do it poster”   colloquially known as Rosie the Riveter has served and still does as an iconic symbol of strength, motivation, and is  closely connected with feminism.

The poster is so popular nowadays that  gives an impression that it single-handedly inspired the phenomenon of “Rosie the Riveters ” and motivated  all the housewives during WWII. Well, one may think this, but one would be very wrong.

The poster that we all love so much, was not popular at all  during World War II, as a matter of fact, it was hardly seen. The poster  rose to fame, years after the war was over, more specifically in the early  1980s. This is what actually  happened.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US government called upon manufacturers to produce greater amounts of war goods. The workplace atmosphere at large factories was often tense because of resentment built up between management and labor unions throughout the 1930s. Directors of companies such as General Motors (GM) sought to minimize past friction and encourage teamwork.

In response to a rumored public relations campaign by the United Auto Workers union, GM quickly produced a propaganda poster in 1942 showing both labor and management rolling up their sleeves, aligned toward maintaining a steady rate of war production.

The poster read, “Together We Can Do It!” and “Keep ‘Em Firing!” In creating such posters, corporations wished to increase production by tapping into the popular pro-war sentiment, with the ultimate goal of preventing the government from exerting greater control over production.

In 1942, Westinghouse Electric’s internal War Production Coordinating Committee hired the Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller through an advertising agency, to create a series of posters to display to the company’s workers.

The intent of the poster project was to raise worker morale, to reduce absenteeism, to direct workers’ questions to management, and to lower the likelihood of labor unrest or a factory strike. Each of the more than 42 posters designed by Miller were displayed in the factory for two weeks, then replaced by the next one in the series.  Among  all the “men” posters emphasizing  traditional roles for men and women, was the yellow poster with a strong female figure with the words “We Can Do it.”

So that was it, the poster was strictly internal to Westinghouse displayed only during February 1943, and was not even  intended to  inspire women to join her but to exhort already-hired women to work harder. The war was over, women got back to being housewives and men got back in the factories. The poster along with other war ephemera found its place somewhere in the National Archives.

Years after, in 1982, the “We Can Do It!”  image was reproduced in a magazine article, “Poster Art for Patriotism’s Sake”, a Washington Post Magazine article about posters in the collection of the National Archives. From then on, feminists and others have seized upon the uplifting attitude and apparent message to remake the image into many different forms, including self-empowerment, campaign promotion, advertising, and parodies.

The poster served and still serves as an advocate for women’s rights in the workforce. In 1984, former war worker Geraldine Hoff Doyle came across an article in Modern Maturity magazine which showed a wartime photograph of a young woman working at a lathe, and she assumed that the photograph was taken of her in mid-to-late 1942 when she was working briefly in a factory. Ten years later, Doyle saw the “We Can Do It!” poster on the front of the  Smithsonian magazine and assumed the poster was an image of herself. Without intending to profit from the connection, Doyle decided that the 1942 wartime photograph had inspired Miller to create the poster, making Doyle herself the model for the poster.

Subsequently, Doyle was widely credited as the inspiration for Miller’s poster. From an archive of Acme News photographs, Professor James J. Kimble obtained the original photographic print, including its yellowed caption identifying the woman as Naomi Parker. The photo is one of a series of photographs taken at Naval Air Station Alameda in California, showing Parker and her sister working at their war jobs during March 1942.

These images were published in various newspapers and magazines beginning in April 1942, during a time when Doyle was still attending high school in Michigan. In February 2015, Kimble interviewed the Parker sisters, now named Naomi Fern Fraley, 93, and her sister Ada Wyn Morford, 91, and found that they had known for five years about the incorrect identification of the photo, and had been rebuffed in their attempt to correct the historical record.

Although many publications have repeated Doyle’s unsupported assertion that the wartime photograph inspired Miller’s poster, Westinghouse historian Charles A. Ruch, a Pittsburgh resident who had been friends with J. Howard Miller, said that Miller was not in the habit of working from photographs, but rather live models. Penny Coleman, the author of Rosie the Riveter: Women working on the home front in World War II , said that she and Ruch could not determine whether the wartime photo had appeared in any of the periodicals that Miller would have seen

After she saw the Smithsonian cover image in 1994, Geraldine Hoff Doyle said that she was the subject of the poster. Doyle thought that she had also been captured in a wartime photograph of a woman factory worker, and she innocently assumed that this photo inspired Miller’s poster. Conflating her as “Rosie the Riveter”, Doyle was honored by many organizations including the Michigan Women’s Historical Center and Hall of Fame. However, in 2015, the woman in the wartime photograph was identified as 20-year-old Naomi Parker, working in early 1942 before Doyle had graduated high school. Doyle’s notion that the photograph inspired the poster cannot be proved or disproved, so first Doyle and then Parker cannot be confirmed as the model for “We Can Do It!”

Another myth connected to the iconic poster if not biggest, is the association with Rosie the Riveter. The poster does not have anything in common with Rosie the Riveter.

The real Rosie the Riveter poster was  created by Norman Rockwell, featuring a chubby woman, taking  her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and a  lunch box beside her  that reads “Rosie”.”; viewers quickly recognized this to be “Rosie the Riveter” from the familiar song.

So, that’s it. Don’t shot the messenger for “bursting the bubble”.  Don’t get us wrong, we love this poster and what the poster represents, but we thought it would be a good idea to reveal the true behind it and free it from all the misconceptions and sensationalism  related to it because  “We can do it”

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Myth-Making and the “We Can Do It!” Poster

A polished version of this post was published in Contexts. You can download it here .

Most of our readers are probably familiar  with the now-iconic “We Can Do It!” poster associated with Rosie the Riveter and the movement of women into the paid industrial workforce during World War II:

It is, by this point, so recognizable that it is often parodied or appropriated for a variety of uses (including selling household cleaners ). The image is widely seen as a symbol of women’s empowerment and a sign of major gender transformations that occurred during the 1940s.

In their article, “Visual Rhetoric Representing Rosie the Riveter: Myth and Misconception in J. Howard Miller’s ‘We Can Do It!’ Poster,” James Kimble and Lester Olson argue that our current interpretations of the poster don’t necessarily align with how it was seen at the time.

While the poster is often described as a government recruiting item (Kimble and Olson give many examples in the article of inaccurate attributions from a variety of sources), it was, in fact, created by J. Howard Miller as part of a series of posters for the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company — the Westinghouse logo is clearly visible just under the woman’s arm, and the badge on her shirt collar is the badge employees wore on the plant floor, including an employee number. The War Production Co-ordinating Committee was an internal Westinghouse committee, similar to those created by many companies during the war, not a government entity.

The assumption of current viewers of the image is usually that it was meant to recruit women into the workforce, or to rally women in general — an early example of girl power marketing, if you will — and was widely displayed. But the audience was actually only Westinghouse employees. The company commissioned artists to create posters to be hung in Westinghouse plants for specific periods of time; this poster specifically says, “Post Feb. 15 to Feb. 28” [1943] in small font on the lower left. There’s no evidence that it was ever made available to the public more broadly. For that matter, the poster doesn’t identify her as “Rosie,” and it’s not clear that at the time she would have been immediately identifiable to viewers as “Rosie the Riveter”.

The image that was more widely seen, and is often conflated with the “We Can Do It!” poster, was Norman Rockwell’s May 29, 1943, cover for the Saturday Evening Post :

Here, the woman is clearly linked to the idea of Rosie the Riveter, through both the name on her lunchbox and the  equipment she’s holding. She is more muscular than the woman in Miller’s poster, she’s dirty, and her foot is standing on a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf . Rockwell’s image presents the woman as a vital part of the war effort; her work helps defeat the Nazis. The image also includes fewer details to make her look conventionally attractive than Miller’s, where the woman has emphasized eyelashes and visibly painted fingernail.

Most interestingly, Kimble and Olson question the female empowerment message presumed to be the point of the “We Can Do It!” poster. We see the poster on its own, through the lens of a narrative about World War II in which housewives left the kitchen in droves to work in factories. But Westinghouse workers would have seen it in a different context, as one of a series of posters displayed in the plant, with similar imagery and text. When seen as just one in a series, rather than a unique image, Kimble and Olson argue that the collective “we” in “We can do it!” wouldn’t have been women , but Westinghouse employees , who were used to seeing such statements posted in employee-access-only areas of the plant.

Of course, having a woman represent a default factory employee is noteworthy. But our reading of the poster as a feminist emblem partially rests on the idea that this female worker is calling out encouragement to other women. The authors, however, point out a much less empowering interpretation if you think of the poster not in terms of feminism, but in terms of social class and labor relations:

…Westinghouse used “We Can Do It!” and Miller’s other posters to encourage women’s cooperation with the company’s relatively conservative concerns and values at a time when both labor organizing and communism were becoming active controversies for many workers… (p. 537) …by addressing workers as “we,” the pronoun obfuscated sharp controversies within labor over communism, red-baiting, discrimination, and other heartfelt sources of divisiveness. (p. 550)

One of the major functions of corporate war committees was to manage labor and discourage any type of labor disputes that might disrupt production. From this perspective, images of happy workers expressing support for the war effort and/or workers’ abilities served as propaganda that encouraged workers to identify with one another and management as a team; “patriotism could be invoked to circumvent strikes and characterize workers’ unrest as un-American” (p. 562).

And, as Kimble and Olson illustrate, most of Miller’s posters included no women at all, and when they did, emphasized conventional femininity and the domestic sphere (such as a heavily made-up woman waving to her husband as he left for work).

Of course, today the “We Can Do It!” poster is seen as a feminist icon, adorning coffee cups, t-shirts, calendars, and refrigerator magnets (I have one). Kimble and Olson don’t explain when and how this shift occurred — when the image went from an obscure piece of corporate war-time propaganda, similar to many others, to a widely-recognized pop cultural image of female empowerment. But they make a convincing argument that our current perceptions of the image involve a significant amount of historical myth-making that helps to obscure the discrimination and opposition many women faced in the paid workforce even during the height of the war effort.

[The article appears in Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9(4): 533-570, 2006.]

Comments 58

Quercki — january 4, 2011.

Here's a link to the song http://www.archive.org/details/RosieTheRiveter

HP — January 4, 2011

There's an episode of the horror-anthology radio drama The Mysterious Traveler where the narrator drops out of character and addresses the audience with "a special message from the War Department." Basically, they were discouraging women from traveling cross-country to war materiel centers looking for work, and encouraging them to take local jobs in their community, particular as drivers. "Every job you take frees up another man to join the fight."

I find this doubly interesting, first, because so many women had uprooted themselves to take these jobs that they were being turned away, and secondly because they chose a horror show to target women listeners. I find it fascinating that horror was once gendered as a feminine genre. (But then, look at Val Lewton's movies, which are similarly aimed at female audiences.)

Mubarak — January 4, 2011

It feels as if they "photoshop" the face of an older teenager girl onto a body of a man. I don't know why I feel that, but I do

john — January 4, 2011

Michigan Woman Who Inspired WWII 'Rosie' Poster Has Died:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/12/30/132484640/michigan-woman-who-inspired-wwii-rosie-poster-has-died

Altagracia — January 4, 2011

Ironically, women still face a hostile work environment in the so called "non-traditional" workplaces like construction, firefighting, plumbing, etc. Even the trade, technical high schools continue to segregate girls into "traditional" trades such as cosmetology. That, more than its historical context, is what makes the poster relevant today. Rosie is not the image that accompanied women into law, medicine, and other professions, but she, and the women who worked heavy industries back then, continue to inspire women's struggle to gain entry into "non-traditional" workplaces and to overcome hostile work environments once they get in.

Artistcolor — January 4, 2011

@Mubarak: I assume you mean the Norman Rockwell cover? That is pretty funny, considering he painted in oil paints a good 40 yrs before Photoshop was invented. Ie this is the work of a wildly popular, esteemed, professional illustrator working for the cover of a major magazine, whose work would have been sketched, then approved by the magazine, then painted in oil paints on canvas, not some joke stuck together by someone in their computer on a whim.

That the woman was young (ie working age but probably not at home with six kids as would not have been unusual for a mother in 1940s) but with a very strong body (do you look at the tool she would be holding and using in her daily work! now if that doesn't make muscles I don't know what does) would have both been conscious decisions carefully conceived and drawn out, and painted by hand. And I believe Norman Rockwell usually worked from live models...

Anyways, it is sad that when we see a strong woman we feel they must have photoshopped a woman's head onto a male body. Note that in most of the world, including North America in the past, women do most of the manual labour (men ride horses, women carry water and wood on their backs and heads)... and North America would have had a lot of farm girls... not shopping mall girls.

K — January 5, 2011

People often think of Norman Rockwell's paintings as cheesy, but he actually produced a number of paintings encouraging racial integration and other forms of ethnic/racial equality.

Morag — January 5, 2011

I don't think her head is unrealistically small - we are just used to very slender women being the default image and their heads look bigger in proportion than they do in stocky women. In fact, I remember when very slender women were becoming more prevalent on movies and TV in the late 90's they used to get derided as the "lollipop heads" because of that very phenomenon. If her head was bigger, she would look like ordinary - and I think she is supposed to be an archetypal image of strength.

Also, as a riveter, she has a very thick and muscular neck, which we are certainly not used to seeing even in very muscular women. Body building women often exercise these less, because big necks create such a "hulking" effect.

Anyway, here is the reality to compare it to: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/warwwii/ig/World-War-II-Rosies--Pictures/Another-Rosie-the-Riveter.-UzO.htm

Woz — January 5, 2011

Further taking the air out of the Rosie-as-feminist-icon image, I remember in an undergrad US history course seeing posters of Rosie that were made after the war, in which she was wearing a house dress and pearls saying something to the effect of "I'd never steal a job from a man," encouraging women to leave the factory and give their vacated jobs back to returning GIs.

Couldn't find it in a quick google search, but I know it exists somewhere...

Altagracia — January 5, 2011

Let's not forget that the Rosie ad campaign that recruited two million women into the defense and related industries when needed, and then told them to go back home when the men returned, was created by the Ad Council (then known as the War Advertising Council. I've read that this was the most successful ad campaign in the history of advertising, and it still holds that record. Here's a call out from the Ad Council's brochure:

WOMEN IN WAR JOBS It wasn't the first time women were recruited for jobs in offices and factories, but in 1943, the mandate was not just economic. Ads like this made an abiding change in the relationship between women and the workplace. Employment outside ofthe home became socially accepted, even desirable.

fleurdemal — January 6, 2011

@ Morag - "Anyway, here is the reality to compare it to: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/warwwii/ig/World-War-II-Rosies–Pictures/Another-Rosie-the-Riveter.-UzO.htm"

Excellent reference to draw our attention to - the woman in that photo is beautiful!

And my 2 cents on the "odd" physical structure: Rockwell knows his design and anatomy and any "abherance" is completely intentional and thought out; his superior technique is indisputable. With figurative exaggeration, Rockwell surely tips his hat to previous historical masters, like Rubens and Michelangelo (yes, even though M. was gay, he still is a formidable and respectable artist female form or otherwise, despite what other comments have alluded to - GRRR).

Also, Rockwell was very tuned into popular culture, where the "super hero" of comics gained in prominence. Wonder Woman's recent rise and success very well might have greased the wheels of public imagination, opening the gates to images of power combined with femininity. In recent years, we've gotten more and more accustomed to waif warrior-esses, the new Sarah Connors and Dollhouse babes who can kiss ass even though they look like they barely have strength to hold up their own skulls.

As a teenager, I thought Rockwell cloying and milchtoast, now I appreciate his kind eye - he interprets the ordinary without glorification, adding softness and humor. Something not often aimed for,and less often achieved.

Suggestion Saturday: January 8, 2011 | On The Other Hand — January 8, 2011

[...] Myth-Making and the “We Can Do It!” Poster. Which picture do you think of when I mention Rosie the Riveter? I just recently found out that the poster most commonly associated with this World War II character isn’t actually the real Rosie. [...]

Anonymous — February 15, 2011

i don't like this poster

because is very ugly D:

Ah, the mixed messages. « Feminéma — March 9, 2011

[...] Rosie the Riveter poster was more ambivalent than we’d like to believe, as I read recently at Sociological Images. Damn scholars, always putting a damper on our views of the [...]

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[...] Will the Real Rosie the Riveter Please Stand Up? Saw this discussion over on Sociological Images either yesterday or today; there’s no way of knowing. Well, I could go into my browser [...]

C Arthur — November 17, 2011

Check this magazine cover illustration: http://issuu.com/unido/docs/makingit8  

Lubar — January 22, 2012

A quick additional note on the Westinghouse poster. Yes, these were posted for just two weeks, for Westinghouse employees. You might be amused to know the the one just two weeks earlier (posted Jan. 1 to Jan. 15) was entitled, "Any questions about your work ...Ask your supervisor." 

Dark killer — June 19, 2012

What do we call Rosie the riverter if she in singapore

We Can Do It! | Black & Blonde — July 16, 2012

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Quora — August 31, 2012

How did the Westinghouse "We Can Do It!" poster become a feminist icon?...

This piece contends that the "We Can Do It!" poster was actually internal propaganda intended to placate labor unrest. Are its facts straight? And if so, how did the poster become a symbol of unity under feminism from a two-week internal document? Wh...

THAT LIT, LIT LIFE (with global characteristics) 8 (of 14) | Ploughshares — October 22, 2012

[...] The original image is actually a poster illustration by J. Howard Miller, an artist commissioned by Westinghouse. You can read more about him in Gwen Sharp’s discussion debunking the myth behind this image: [...]

I Am Woman: Where Do We Begin? : Forever Twenty Somethings — March 15, 2013

[...] approach, and it works for a few of us, for a little while. We come together under an umbrella with Geraldine Hoff‘s iconic face plastered on it. We chant, “Run the World” like we are [...]

Don’t Call Them Baby, Sweetheart, Honey… or Feminist | Painting the Grey Area — March 21, 2013

[...] Fun fact: the original version of this poster probably had very little to do with female empowerment. [...]

She’s Making History, Working for Victory, Rosie the Riveter! | Rosie the Riveter We Can Do It! — March 28, 2013

[...] Myth-Making and the “We Can Do It! Poster:  The Society Pages has a VERY interesting article about the mythology behind Rosie.  For instance, the Rosie poster is often misidentified as a “government recruiting” poster, “in fact, created by J. Howard Miller as part of a series of posters for the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company — the Westinghouse logo is clearly visible just under the woman’s arm, and the badge on her shirt collar is the badge employees wore on the plant floor, including an employee number.” [...]

FOR ASSESSMENT 360mc: Analysis on Power Artefact | chelseaballaamyr3 — November 27, 2013

[…] http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/01/04/myth-making-and-the-we-can-do-it-poster/ […]

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[…] Women and Propaganda […]

Save Rosie! A Piece Of Women’s History Faces The Wrecking Ball | Most Searched Ever — April 29, 2014

[…] the famous “We Can Do It!” propaganda poster wasn’t actually connected to the Rosie movement — the image was little-known during the war and lost for decades before being revived as a […]

No Name Brand Democracy | maggiequinn — June 18, 2014

[…] Rosie? Who is Rosie? […]

The Real Rosie | persuasioning — July 28, 2014

[…] is the real Rosie the Riveter. Click through here to learn the […]

Joseph Meyer — July 29, 2014

I'm not entirely sure that I understand the point of this article, but it would appear to promote the popular meme that communism was somehow benign and opposition to it suspect. A hundred million corpses might take issue with that assertion, not to mention many more who were imprisoned behind walls in their own countries.

Gemma Seymour — July 30, 2014

An interesting thing about society is that it often repurposes things. The Westinghouse poster might not have meant the same thing to the people of 1944 that it means to the people of 2014, but then, neither does the Constitution of the United States. If you tried to pass the Constitution or the Bill of Rights today, it would probably fail abysmally.

I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to have enjoyed the stories of my grandparents' generation about the war. I sometimes forget in my middle age that a goodly proportion of the adult writers on the Internet nowadays are young enough to be my children.

During the war, quite a number of conventionally attractive women participated with equal fervor in the war effort, and quite a number of women held onto the trappings of conventional femininity with a vehemence, precisely because they were symbols that tyranny could not entirely destroy their lives, as well as because of the circumstances of mortality. My mother's mother tells me that approximately 50% of the young men from her town died in the war.

Maybe you think the girls filling their dance cards down at the USO hall weren't as valuable to the war effort as Rosie, IDK. But one thing I do know is this: both of my grandfathers fought in WWII and lived to tell about it, my maternal grandfather in the US Navy, and my paternal grandfather as a guerrilla fighter in the Philippines under the Japanese occupation, and both of my grandmothers contributed in every way they could.

My mother's mother was one of the pretty ones. I remember seeing pictures of her from the war for the first time when I was in my teens, and being shocked at how beautiful she really was; to me, she'd always been fat and old (as I thought of such things at the time). My father's mother died halfway around the world when I was a small child in the late 1960's, and I never met her, but I know something of how she lived and what life was like for her when the Japanese soldiers would come around looking for my grandfather, who was busy blowing up Japanese fuel and ammo dumps.

So, you will pardon me if I see a "pretty" "Rosie" and take from her a message that her creators didn't intend. Intent, after all, is not magick. Perhaps we would all do better to resist the impulse to judge the "validity" of everything as if something's (or someone's) origins were the sum total of their being.

Isn't the most core tenet of Feminism "biology is not destiny"?!

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[…] SHARP, Gwen. « Myth-Making and the ‘We Can Do It!’ Poster ». Sociological Images (blog), The Society Pages (4 janvier 2011). [En ligne] https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/01/04/myth-making-and-the-we-can-do-it-poster/. […]

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We Can Do It! A Semiotic Approach to J. Howard Miller's Rosie the Riveter Poster and the Morale of World War II Era American Women

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Hannah Sophia Wong

Visual Communication Quarterly

Easton Wollney , Miglena Sternadori

This analysis used Peirce’s triadic approach to interpret 58 public depictions of women during the two world wars. The images, appearing in government posters or as ads and illustrations in U.S. magazines and newspapers, endeavored to convey the seriousness of the war effort and mobilize audiences to support it. Aligned in five thematic clusters (competence, domesticity, heterosexual attraction, beauty maintenance, and romantic longing), many invited polysemy through discrepant visual and verbal cues aimed at different audiences. Women as viewers and as objects of representation were addressed in the context of both citizenship and consumption. The analysis explicates ideological points about wartime gender relations and points to the objectification of women’s bodies as implied sexual rewards for product purchase in WWII.

Media History

bilge yesil

Patricia J Lopez

Scholars have long held that World War I markedly impacted women’s participation in the public sphere as questions of appropriate wartime participation for women arose. Posters were an important tool for communicating notions of feminine citizenship and patriotism during the U.S.’s involvement in the war. In this article, I explore the influence of the U.S.’s involvement in WWI on social constructions of white femininity and citizenship through their portrayal in American Red Cross posters produced between 1914 and 1919. These posters offer a distinct visual documentation of the cultural shift in the portrayal of, and the insistence on, white women’s – particularly nurses’ – responsibilities during wartime. I argue that the sentiments and language of the newly splintered women’s movements were co-opted into the service of the war and were further emboldened with religious sentiments. American Red Cross posters called upon women to enact their presumed innate nurturing tendencies, and by extension, their feminine citizenship, at both the home and war fronts. In this way, the labor of the private sphere was drawn into the service of the war but without fully admitting women into the public sphere.

Esin Berktaş

The propaganda posters produced during war exemplify authoritarian governments, traditional values, and oppressive administrations. These posters represented authoritarian ideals, beliefs, ideology and meanings as examples and productions of nationalist and fascist aesthetic understandings. This understanding can be seen in propaganda materials of anti-democratic governments. Fascism codes, revaluates, reproduce and distributes the traditional, national, religious, metaphysical as well as patriarchal ideas. These works usually aim the exaggeration or heroization of a people (male or female), a leader, a group, an ethnicity or a nation in an open or hidden way. These methods include the endeavor to show authoritarian leaders as brave protagonists, and indispensable governors. The conceptualization of the authority as "a holy, godlike creature who protects everybody, everywhere, every time" is reflected in the poster both in visual and content-related symbols. Within the propaganda posters, the supremacy, the power, the beauty, the honesty, the strength, the bravery, the rightfulness of a country, society, nation, ethnicity, clan or a social actor is being emphasized. The representation of women in these propaganda posters is usually in prototypes of traditional gender roles such as mothers, females, children, wives, lovers, workers, nurses, doctors, cooks, prostitutes etc. Using female characteristics for propaganda is a potent and effective tool is very important in understanding the hidden mechanisms behind patriarchal war economy and politics.

Journal of War &# 38; Culture Studies

Anna Froula

ANDRE ALVES

In this article, the authors examine classified advertising for employment in Los Angeles during World War II. There is no prior research on the role of classified advertising in wartime labor markets, despite the importance of World War II to narratives of change in women's work in the United States. In contrast to the iconic Rosie the Riveter advertisements, which promoted change in women's occupations, classified advertisements show important continuities with pre- and postwar labor markets. The majority of advertisements for women workers were for domestic service or clerical work, not defense production. Classified advertisements continued to be functional, emphasizing wages and working conditions, and made little explicit reference to the patriotic importance of the war.

American Journalism 22:2 (Spring 2005), 83-108.

Jane Marcellus

When the United States entered World War II, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser built three large shipyards on the Columbia River at Portland, Oregon, and nearby Vancouver, Washington. Like similar plants across America, the Kaiser shipyards employed a high number of female workers—collectively known as “Rosie the Riveter.” Kaiser also published a magazine for shipyard workers, Bo’s’n’s Whistle—an early example of an in-house employee publication. This article looks at the portrayal of female workers in this industrial magazine. While many researchers have examined mainstream media efforts to recruit women for wartime work, none have looked at how they were portrayed while on the job in a publication put out by the industry itself. The article argues that framing women in sexual language and as oddities on male turf may have been aimed at boosting male workers’ morale and that it ultimately furthered the goals of mainstream propaganda urging women to become housewives at war’s end.

Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies

Michelle Moravec

How did women serving in World War I frame their encounters with mortality? While the sacrificial mother and the homefront sweetheart are familiar figures from the Great War, tens of thousands of American women who served overseas are left out of gendered depictions of sacrifice and loss. Although these valiant women willingly faced the dangers war brought, how they understood these experiences after the fact is less clear. An underutilized source, their wartime scrapbooks, provides insight into their responses. This article, the results of an honors undergraduate student project at Rosemont College, focuses on visual narratives of wartime nurses, two with Pennsylvania connections and one from New York, as examples of women's efforts to record histories of a war from which they are too often excluded.

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Exploring History with the National Archives Special Media Division

The Unwritten Record

We Can Do It!: World War II Posters at the Still Picture Branch

Many recognize Rosie the Riveter’s “We Can Do It!” or Uncle Sam’s “I Want You” posters from World War II. Just as the posters created a rousing call to the public at the time of their creation, they also serve as hallmarks of the Second World War. The Still Picture Branch at the National Archives and Records Administration houses a multitude of posters used during World War II by the United States Government. The messages range from the promotion of Victory Gardens to recruitment for the various branches of the military.

While not an exhaustive list, included within this blog post are highlights of the largest series of posters from World War II within the holdings of the Still Picture Branch. Also listed below are series of art created during the process of designing the posters, as well as posters from foreign countries.

Fully Digitized Series of Posters

44-PA: World War II Posters, 1942 – 1945

This series consists of posters created by various Federal Agencies and assembled by the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information to promote the war effort. Posters in this series range from the famous Uncle Sam’s “I Want You” to promotions for War Bonds to advocating for healthy practices. The series is entirely digitized and available through our online catalog . Please note that there are a few posters in this series that may have copyright restrictions.  Refer to our copyright and publication statement below.

179-WP: War Production Board, 1942 – 1943

This series consists of posters used in various production drives instituted by the War Production Board, which was an United States government agency created to manage production of war materials during World War II. Included in this series are posters such as Rosie the Riveter’s “We Can Do It!,” posters recruiting for the military, and promotion of the war effort on the homefront. This series is entirely digitized and available through our online catalog .

44-PF: World War II Foreign Posters, 1942 – 1945

This series consists of posters produced by foreign information offices and war relief associations. The posters are from a variety of countries including Great Britain, Canada, France, Russia, and more. The subject matter includes promotions for military recruitment, education, safety and more. This series is entirely digitized and available through our online catalog .

208-AOP: Original Artwork for World War II Posters, 1942 – 1945 

This series consists of original artwork and a few photographs for World War II-era posters. Many posters were created by the Office of War Information (OWI) for the War Department’s campaigns. The art covers a variety of topics such as civilian agencies’ campaigns, labor issues, promoting unity among the Allies, and many more. A number of works of art were created by renowned artists, or those who later grew in popularity. The series is entirely digitized and available through our online catalog . Please note that there are a few records in this series that may have copyright restrictions. Refer to our copyright and publication statement below.

Additional Series that are Not Currently Digitized

287-p: illustrative material published by the government printing office and other government agencies, 1871 – 1970.

This series consists of primarily posters printed by the Government Printing Office (GPO) between 1917 and 1945, with additional materials dated up until 1970. Since the Government Printing Office (GPO) produces and distributes materials for all three branches of the United States Federal Government, the materials within this series were created by nearly 150 Federal Agencies. The posters related to World War II cover subject matter such as military recruitment, war efforts at home and abroad, Civil Defense, and more. This series is not currently digitized.

24-PO: Recruitment Posters, ca. 1942 – ca. 2001

This series consists of posters produced for recruiting for the United States Navy. Most of the posters are from World War II, however, a few posters from World War I are also included. The posters were used to recruit for a variety of naval positions such as the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), the Seabees, and more. This series is not currently digitized.

44-PS: Records Relating to Poster Production and Procurement, 1942 – 1945

This series consists of records that illustrate the effort undertaken by the U.S. Government to produce and disseminate posters during World War II. While there are no full-size posters within this series, there are poster catalogs, lists of contacts for posters within various U.S. Government agencies, bulletins, and a “Poster Handbook” outlining the steps in procuring and displaying posters. This series is not currently digitized.

208-MSC: Posters from the World War II-Era, ca. 1942 – ca. 1945

This series consists primarily of posters used during World War II. The posters focus on production and other labor-related issues, as well as the need to conserve and recycle materials for the war effort. Poster titles include: “For God and Country Plant a Victory Garden,” “Effort for Victory. Safety. A Good Production Soldier Doesn’t Expose Himself to the Sniping of Danger,” and “Kid Salvage.” Please note that there are a few posters in this series that may have copyright restrictions. This series is not currently digitized.

208-PMP: World War II Posters, 1941 – 1944

This series consists of color and black and white posters that were distributed and predominately produced by the Office of War Information’s Art Section of the Graphics Division of the Domestic Operations Branch. The posters address recruitment, national security, conservation of resources, fund raising, and propaganda. This series is not currently digitized.

208-PMO: Office of War Information Posters, ca. 1941 – ca. 1945

This series consists of posters from the Office of War Information (OWI) during World War II. The posters cover a variety of subject matter related to the war effort such as wartime production, health and safety issues, war bonds, military recruitment, and more. The posters were created by federal agencies, commissions, and councils, as well as non-federal organizations. Please note that there are a few posters in this series that may have copyright restrictions.   This series is not currently digitized.

See our additional blog posts related to World War II posters:

Images of the Week: World War II Posters Food and the War Effort Spotlight: Propaganda Double Take: Making Visual Connections in the National Archives Catalog

If you have questions about any of the posters included in this blog post or still photographs, you may contact the Still Picture Branch at [email protected] .

PUBLICATION OF PHOTOGRAPHS FURNISHED BY THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES STILL PICTURE BRANCH-RRSS

Generally, copies of photographic records held by the National Archives may be published without special permission or additional fees. The National Archives does not grant exclusive or non-exclusive publication privileges. Copies of Federal records, as part of the public domain, are equally available to all. A small percentage of photographs in our holdings are or may be subject to copyright restrictions. The National Archives does not confirm the copyright status of photographs but will provide any information known about said status. It is the user’s responsibility to obtain all necessary clearances. Any use of these items is made at the researcher’s or purchaser’s own risk.

Proper credit lines are encouraged in the interest of good documentation. They also help inform the public about government photographic resources that are available.

*Because so many of our requests for information cite credits and captions that appear in published works, the inclusion of a photo number in hard copy  and  electronic publications is of great assistance to both us and the public.

Examples of preferred credit lines are as follows:

• National Archives photo no. 210-G-C241
• Credit National Archives (photo no. 83-G-41368)
• Courtesy National Archives, photo no.  83-G-41430
• National Archives (210-G-A14)

If using a large number of our images, the National Archives will appreciate receiving copies of publications that contain our photographs. Such copies can be sent to the Still Picture Branch or the Library, National Archives and Records Administration.

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"we can do it" poster.

• J. Howard Miller   Artist
• Norman Rockwell   2
• Poster   1552

Type of Work

• Finished work   5319

The poster was created during World War 2, but wasn't as seen. It was rediscovered in the early 1980s. The poster is also called “Rosie the Riveter” as it portrays a strong female war production worker. It was used to promote feminism and other political issues during the 1980s.

Produced by the War Productions Co-ordinating Committee

• poster design
• World War II
• Women's Work

Warhawk Air Museum

Rosie the riveter–symbol of the “we can do it” spirit.

Posted On: March 15, 2023

Rosie the muse

As ubiquitous as the “We Can Do It!” poster is within the modern imaginings of the World War II zeitgeist, it actually had very little to no cultural impact at its display in early 1943. Hired by Westinghouse Electric in 1942, J. Howard Miller created a series of 42 posters to raise morale and reduce the chances of worker strikes in their factories. There was often tension between labor unions and management after the U.S. joined WWII as demand for goods increased and the number of male workers decreased, and propaganda posters were a popular public relations tool. 1

This female Westinghouse worker, unnamed, was displayed for about two weeks in factories in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was most likely only meant as encouragement for the female workers making plasticized helmet liners. 1

Rosie the Riveter’s actual first public appearance was a popular, self-titled, song released in February 1943 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Not much is known about Loeb, but Evans was a composer, author, publisher, musician and record executive 2 . The song 3 starts: 

While other girls attend their fav’rite cocktail bar, Sipping dry Martinis, munching caviar, There’s a girl who’s really putting them to shame, Rosie is her name… 

All the day long, whether rain or shine, She’s a part of the assembly line. She’s making history, Working for victory, Rosie the Riveter. 

Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage, Sitting up there on the fuselage. That little frail can do, More than a male can do, Rosie the riveter. 

The song continues to describe Rosie (“never twittery, nervous or jittery”; “smeared full of oil and grease”) and her responsibilities (protecting her boyfriend Charlie–a marine–by working overtime riveting, and “putting all her cash” into buying war bonds).

This introduction was quickly followed by Norman Rockwell’s contribution—a painting of Rosie on her lunch break, seated in front of the American flag that appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943. 4 This rendition of Rosie is a stark contrast to Miller’s, with her muscular arms, men’s shoes and oversized uniform. Though, importantly, she is still depicted with traditionally feminine touches (see “ The patriotism of beauty, grooming & fashion during WWII ”): styled red hair, red nail polish, red lipstick and a handkerchief and compact sticking out of her pocket. She sits with a foot on top of Hitler’s manifesto, Mein Kampf . The image became hugely popular and the Post loaned it to the U.S. Treasury Department for use on posters for their war bond drives.

After the war, Rockwell’s Rosie was used less and less due to its copyrighted status and gradually faded from the public’s memory (though the original only gained in worth, selling for $5 million in 2002 1 ). In 1982, ironically due to its uncopyrighted state, Miller’s poster became popular for the first time. It was published in a magazine article in the Washington Post Magazine (“Poster Art for Patriotism’s Sake”) and, probably due to its seamless combination of femininity and strength, was appropriated as a feminist symbol. Since then, it has appeared on Smithsonian magazine’s cover, a U.S. Postal Service stamp, in a display at the National Museum of American History and has generally become the most recognizable image of Rosie. 1

More than Riveting

Rosies took on many forms and many jobs during WWII. From 1940 to 1945, women in the workplace increased from 27% to 37%, with 19 million making up the labor force on the home front and 350,000 serving in the military. 5 As impressive as the numbers were, women’s positions in the workforce changed even more drastically. Previously homemakers, domestic servants, secretaries, receptionists or store clerks, women answered their country’s call and took on work as streetcar operators, taxi drivers, and positions in construction, steel, lumber, munitions, agriculture, government and more. 6 The number of women in the aircraft industry climbed to 65%. The numbers also received a boost after President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order in 1941 banning racial discrimination in the defense industry. This led to one million African Americans joining the workforce for the first time, 600,000 of which were women. 7

After the release of the song and Rockwell’s poster, Rosie the Riveter became a symbol for women across the United States and a rallying call for women to take up previously male positions in order to free up a man to fight. Many of these women began referring to themselves as “Rosies”. Originally only meant to inspire patriotism, Rosie also came to be a symbol of female empowerment and liberation. Though paid significantly less than men in the same roles, many women enjoyed the new skills, confidence, and financial freedom that working provided. Though most were asked to leave their jobs or were demoted once the war ended, a great change in societal norms had begun.

The Warhawk’s Rosies

The Warhawk Air Museum Exhibit #13 has more Rosie information and artifacts, including from Bell Aircraft Corporation employee Grace A Pankow. Grace joined the workforce at age 18 attaching brake lines to airplanes on the assembly-line.

Read Grace’s story: Profiles in Courage: Grace A. Pankow

March 19 – Rosie the Riveter Day

Help Rosie take over the Warhawk Air Museum March 19, 2023 for Rosie the Riveter Day . Don your most riveting Rosie attire and get into the museum FREE! We will be featuring our home front and women in uniform displays.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It!
• https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0263147/bio
• http://www.protestsonglyrics.net/Historic_Songs/Rosie-the-Riveter.phtml
• https://www.nrm.org/rosie-the-riveter/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_women_in_World_War_II
• https://www.history.com/news/how-world-war-ii-empowered-women
• https://www.history.com/news/black-rosie-the-riveters-wwii-homefront-great-migration

Tags: Displays | WWII

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We can do it the story of rosie the riveter.

• World War 2

POUTED lips, HIGH cheekbones, STRONG eyed and a SAUCY curls falling right from her polka dotted headscarf—ROSIE the RIVETER (as commonly or mistakenly known) is the most attractive war propaganda poster from the 1940’s WWII.

Exotic as she may look, the history behind the mythical lady is not at all glamorous— but deeply thought-provoking! Her journey started as an idea for increasing the morale of war goods producing workers but soon came to being perceived as an-only-women rights model.

WWII: A gospel about the ‘We can do it!’ Poster

1941: Pearl Harbor is attacked by the Japanese. The US government seeks an increase in its war goods such as missiles, tanks, and machines, etc. This creates pressure on war goods manufacturers leading to the low morale of workers. To boost teamwork, large factory owners decide to produce a series of propaganda posters showing how labor and upper management can work together and increase production.

1943: Looking at this trend, J. Howard Miller was soon hired to design posters for the same purpose. He was assigned to the Westinghouse Electric Company for this job. The poster was intended to be displayed for a short period of time in the factories and not seen as a sign of ‘women can do it’, but as ‘Westinghouse employees can do it!’

1980: World War II saw very little of the poster designed by Miller, and it was not almost 30 years later, that it was seen across America, duplicated in various forms. Interestingly, the ‘We can do it!’ poster gained popularity due to the symbol of a young, attractive, and a strong woman who was soon to be known as Rosie the Riveter and not the cover girl from the WWII poster.

The Curious Case of Rosie the Riveter

The lady in ‘We can do it!’ poster of 1943, or more famously known as Rosie the Riveter has been a case of disagreement for many years. The term Rosie the Riveter was coupled with various apparently fabricated stories.

The song: ‘Rosie the Riveter’ from the song with the same name was written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb during 1942. The song portrayed a vigorous female labor during the American war production but was in no way associated with the cover girl in the poster.

The painting: It was certainly also not the famous painting in the Memorial Day issue of the Saturday Evening Post, by Norman Rockwell published on May 29th, 1943. Although the painting gained immense popularity from the time of its publication, till today, it was not connected to Rosie from the war promotional poster.

The name game:  The most traditional belief attached to the name, Rosie was that the Westinghouse propaganda poster was in regards to women named or nicknamed Rosie. Nor was it to the women who came forward to show support and offer help for women working in the American war good production factories.

Little Miss Doyle: In 1984, one fine day  this former American war goods worker by the name of Doyle, flipped through the Modern Maturity magazine, which contained a weird picture of the women from ‘We can do it!’ poster, and interestingly enough, the lady claimed to be the face behind the image. That said, she was widely appreciated and known to be the inspiration behind Miller’s muse. However, it was later discovered that the picture was a click of Naomi Parker working in WWII jobs in 1942.

The Rise of Rosie—A Feminist in the Making

The WWII propaganda image was soon out of sight after it first came out. It was not until 1982 that the ‘We Can Do It!’ poster was picked up by a magazine for reproduction purposes.

The following years, the poster was re-purposed to promote the concept of Feminism. Women around the world, or as you may call them, feminists, saw the image as an embracement of women power. The ‘we can do it!’ was now seen by women as ‘We Women Can Do It!’ The idea brought together all the females with a mutual agenda to fight gender inequality.

The view of Rosie the Riveter, after almost three decades, was very contrasting to the initial concept, which was: to boost employee morale, to encourage teamwork, control employees, and prevent unrest among workers.

In no time, the ‘We can do it!’ image was used to sponsor the idea of feminism and other constitutional issues arising in the 80’s. The overwhelmed response to the poster led it to bag the cover page of Smithsonian magazine to recall the times of WWII. Later in February 1999, it was reproduced to be first- class mail stamp image.

Today: WWII forgotten, Young Muscle Flexing Women Remembered

‘We can do it!’ is not cherished or honored for the initial cause it was illustrated for, it now is known for something else.

It is interesting to see how an image (art o painting) can instill different ideas and concepts from the perceiver. What was initially constructed to be used for workers during the WWII period is now a pop icon cultural image to signify women empowerment.

Many political figures of late have made use of the image, such as in the case of 2008 elections which saw the use of Rosie the Riveter banners, posters, and flyers used in the political campaigns of some famous women politicians like Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama and Julia Gillard.

The journey of Rosie the Riveter from the darkness of WWII into a world of feminism highlights an ignored fact. It may sound appalling but it’s true— The ‘We can do it girl!’ was not a feminist fighting for gender inequality, as thought so, but ironically, women working in factories for producing war goods were often seen inferior to men, may that be in power, strength or status.

The perception that women today hold that the lady in the poster is actually on point for the working females in the historic times, that were forced to be second to men in the workforce, especially in terms of wages offered to women, which were not even the half of what men were paid—for the same job!