RIP "Rosie the Riveter" model Geraldine Doyle

Posted on: Thu, 12/30/2010 - 15:43 By: Tom Swiss

Geraldine Doyle was the model for the "We Can Do It!" WWII poster that became a feminist icon. She died Sunday, aged 86.

A photo of Doyle taken by a UPI photographer was used as a model (just for the face, not the muscular arm) by Westinghouse graphic artist J. Howard Miller when he created the poster, which was originally aimed at deterring strikes and absenteeism. Doyle herself didn't know about the poster until the 1980s, when it became a icon of the women's movement.

The character in the image is often called "Rosie the Riveter", a name that comes from stems from a 1942 song. The song was inspired by Rosalind P. Walter, and Rose Will Monroe became the best-known "Rosie" after she was featured in a wartime promotional film. But the image modeled on Doyle -- though never originally associaited with the Rosie name -- perhaps proved to have more staying power, after it was re-discovered in the 1970s or 80s.

According to Doyle's daughter, Doyle was quick to correct people who thought she was the original Rosie the Riveter: "She would say that she was the 'We Can Do It!" girl...She never wanted to take anything away from the other Rosies."