We Can Do It!

Geraldine Doyle passed away this week. She was 86. You may not know the name Geraldine Doyle but you know the face. Geraldine Doyle was a 17 year old stamping press operator in Montana when a news photographer snapped her picture in 1942. Commercial artist J. Howard Miller turned her image into one of the most iconic posters of World War II--that of young, brassy American female, her jaw set and her hair wrapped in a bandanna while she brazenly flexes her bare bicep for all the world--especially the Axis powers-- to see.

Ms Doyle's iconic image became emblematic of the fighting spirit of female American workers who turned out munitions, airplanes, tanks and trucks to support their men fighting overseas. This theme is supported by the poster's caption: We Can Do It!


The poster's image is often mistaken for that of "Rosie the Riveter," a similar illustration later penned by Norman Rockwell in 1943 for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine.

What you may not know is that Miller's poster was designed as part of a motivational series to be displayed in the Midwest factories of the Westinghouse Electric Company.  The poster, intended for internal consumption, was to become emblematic of American can-do spirit--motivating American working women and fighting men, and dispiriting America's enemies.

Ms. Doyle apparently didn't know that she had become the original poster child for girl power until she came across the illustration in 1984 in a copy of Modern Maturity magazine.

Photography and art live forever. After inspiring not only  a cadre of Westinghouse workers, but the American war effort, We Can Do It! had a second life in the 1970s and 1980s inspiring a new generation of American feminists.

Another thing you may not know about Geraldine Doyle. Although she became an icon for American working women, Ms. Doyle lasted only about a week on the shop floor of that stamping plant. Soon after the photo was snapped, she quit to take a job as a timekeeper.

Just thought you might like to know.