We can do it: Naomi Parker Fraley, the real Rosie the Riveter poster girl , dies aged 96

Duncan Geddes
The Times
The “We can do it” poster was not widely seen during the Second World War and was made famous by feminists in the 1980s
The “We can do it” poster was not widely seen during the Second World War and was made famous by feminists in the 1980s
ERIC RISBERG/AP
Duncan Geddes
The Times

Naomi Parker Fraley, the apparent muse behind a wartime recruitment poster which became a feminist symbol, has died aged 96.

The image of an American factory worker, her sleeve rolled up and fist clenched, was made to galvanise women drafted into manual labour with the words “We can do it!” Her likeness was named Rosie the Riveter and became world famous during the women’s liberation movements of the 1980s.

Mrs Fraley, who died on Saturday in Longview, Washington, was only accepted to be the model in 2016 after years of academic research which disputed another woman’s claim.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Naomi Parker was one of the first women drafted to work at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California, after Japan’s attack on Pearl