We Can Do It! White Cat Rosie the Riveter Soup

“We Can Do It!” is an American World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller in for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale. The poster was little seen during World War II. It was rediscovered in the early s and widely reproduced in many forms, often called “We Can Do It!” but also called “Rosie the Riveter” after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. The “We Can Do It!” image was used to promote feminism and other political issues beginning in the s. The image made the cover of the Smithsonian magazine in and was fashioned into a US first-class mail stamp in . It was incorporated in into campaign materials for several American politicians, and was reworked by an artist in to celebrate the first woman becoming prime minister of Australia. The poster is one of the ten most-requested images at the National Archives and Records Administration. After its rediscovery, observers often assumed that the image was always used as a call to inspire women workers to join the war effort. However, during the war the image was strictly internal to Westinghouse, displayed only during February , and was not for recruitment but to exhort already-hired women to work harder. People 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. After she saw the Smithsonian cover image in , Geraldine Hoff Doyle mistakenly 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 , the woman in the wartime photograph was identified as then -year-old Naomi Parker, working in early before Doyle had graduated from high school. Doyle’s notion that the photograph inspired the poster cannot be proved or disproved, so neither Doyle nor Parker can be confirmed as the model for “We Can Do It!”.