Content area
Full text
This essay examines the World War II poster "We Can Do It!," commonly known as "Rosie the Riveter." Today, J. Howard Miller's print is a feminist icon. However, archival evidence demonstrates that during World War II the empowering rhetorical appeal of this Westinghouse image was circumscribed by the conditions of its use and by several other posters in its series. The essay concludes that, when considered in its original context, the "We Can Do It!" poster was not nearly as empowering of home-front women as it might seem to more recent viewers. The poster has become a modern-day myth.
Posters are the paper evidence of the way we were and the way we are.
Christopher Trump1
We reinterpret relics and records to make them more comprehensible, to justify present attitudes and actions, to underscore changes of faith. The unadulterated past is seldom sufficiently ancient or glorious; most heritages need ageing and augmenting.
David Lowenthal2
Rosie the Riveter has become a modern American legend. According to this legend, during World War II women in the United States turned manpower into woman power as housewives across the nation took manufacturing jobs building bombers, ships, tanks, and the munitions they would fire. These women did so bravely and patriotically, the legend tells us. They were instrumental in helping to win an overwhelming victory against the forces of evil. They even managed to remain attractive and womanly while on the assembly line. When it was all over, they found that their selfless contributions to the war had changed the lives of American women forever. Historian William Henry Chafe, author of The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970, asserted the truth of the legend's broad outlines when he wrote, "the war represented a turning point for women workers." He summarized that wartime "statistics told a remarkable story of change, and justified the National Manpower Council's conclusion that the war had prompted a 'revolution' in the lives of women in America."3
The continuing power of this Rosie legend has not been lost on feminist scholars.Writing ironically, revisionist Paddy Quick affirmed the existence of this legend as it pertained to Rosie the Riveter. "Once upon a time," she intoned, "the government appealed to women to help out...