This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show that proves it's never too late to make history. I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're celebrating the birth of Rosie the Riveter, one of the most enduring icons of World War II and a versatile symbol of women's independence. The day was February fifteenth, nineteen forty three. The now famous Rosie the Riveter we Can Do It poster was first displayed in Westinghouse factories. Copies of the poster hung on the walls for just two weeks, and we're only ever seen by the working women inside the factories. But thanks to a confluent of circumstances including a hit song, a magazine cover, and second wave feminism, the wartime poster was rediscovered decades later and given new life as an American symbol of female empowerment. In nineteen forty two, the year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, nearly a million American troops were deployed overseas, and several million more were expected to follow in the years ahead. This mass exodus of able bodied men sparked a panic at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was predicted that in less preventive measures were taken, acute labor shortages would develop and the country's industry would grind to a halt by the end of nineteen forty three. Luckily, the solution was just as clear cut as the problem itself, as one government study concluded, with the exception of the few hundred thousand boys of pre draft age, this gap in the workforce will have to be plugged almost entirely by women in short order. Millions of American women eagerly rose to the challenge, having long been deprived of opportunities to join the workforce. But in the early days of the war effort, the US government thought that women might need some convincing According to an internal report from the Office of War Information, quote, these jobs will have to be glorified as a patriotic war service. If American women are to be persuaded to take them and stick to them, their importance to a nation engaged in total war must be convincingly presented. To that end, the government called upon the wartime committees of private industries and the American media to help with the task, and the resulting posters and films that they generated became some of the most compelling and well known images of World War II. Case in point is J. Howard Miller's we Can Do It poster. In late nineteen forty two, the Pittsburgh artist was hired by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company to create a series of motivational posters to hang inside its factories. The goal was to boost employee morale and productivity while also discouraging absenteeism or potential strikes. Miller produced forty two different posters in total, with each design displayed for just two weeks before being replaced by the next one. The we Can Do It poster began its two week stint on February fifteenth, nineteen forty three, when it was hung up in several Westinghouse factories in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The image on the poster shows a female worker in denim coveralls and a red and white polka dot bandana which she wears as a headscarf. Sporting a stoic expression and one raised eyebrow. The figure looks toward the viewer as she draws back her shirt sleeve and flexes her bicep. A blue speech bum above her head proclaims her now iconic catchphrase, and a Westinghouse employee id badge pinned to her lapel tells us exactly to whom she's speaking. Miller took his inspiration for the poster from Naomi Parker Freeley, a twenty year old metal stamp presser at the Alameda Naval Air Station in Oakland, California. A wire service photographer had taken her picture for a story on women in the workplace, and when Miller came across it in a newspaper, he decided to use her as a model for his latest poster, including her polka dot bandana. And while you might think it strange that Miller would use a metal stamp presser as a model for his portrait of a riveter, there is actually nothing in the poster to suggest she's a riveter at all. In fact, the women the poster was made to inspire weren't riveters either. Their job was to make plasticized helmet liners, a task that in no way required riveting. Of course, Holly the helmet liner maker doesn't have the same ring to it as Rosie the Riveter, But the truth of it is that j Howard Miller never gave the character a name at all. The illiterative Moniker was actually coined by a pair of songwriters, Red Evans and John Jacob Loebe. In a strange coincidence, Their song Rosy the Riveter was popularized by The Four Vagabonds around the same time that Miller's We Can Do at poster was tacked up in Westinghouse factories. The two works were completely unrelated at the time, as only eighteen hundred copies of the poster had been printed and no one outside the factory walls had seen them. Still, the song did cover the same subject matter as the poster, singing the praises of women going to work in record numbers to tackle jobs they'd never done before. Take a listen, long weather, Jesus of the assembly line. She's making history. What Rosie keeps a sharp lookout as advantage sitting up there on the Rosy the roses of friend Charlie. Charlie, He's a marine, Rosie is predicting Charlie working over time on the raveting machine. When they gave her a production name, she was as proud as a girl could be. There's something new about Red, White, and Blue about Rosie. According to Loeb's widow, the song wasn't based on any one woman in particular. The name Rosie was chosen simply because it went well with Riveter. But as the song became a national hit on the radio, Rosie began to take on a life of her own. She became a symbol of all the women who were doing their part to win the war, from the welders to the mechanics, to the taxi drivers, nurses, firefighters, and yes, the riveters. A few months after the song's debut, Rosie finally got a face to go with her name, but it wasn't the one we most associate her with today. Instead, the Rosy made popular during the war was created by illustrator Norman Rockwell as an apparent homage to the song. It first appeared on the cover of the Memorial Day issue of The Saturday Evening Post, and it depicts a muscular, red headed woman wearing coveralls and goggles. She sits with an old school rivet gun laid across her lap and is holding a sandwich in one hand, with the other draped over her lunch pail, which is inscribed with her name, and if you look closely. At the bottom of the image, you can see that her feet are resting on a tattered copy of Adolph Hitler's manifesto Mine komf. Rockwell's cover was enormously popular, so much so that the US government began using the art to advertise war bonds and to aid in recruiting. That usage cemented Rockwell's image as the definitive representation of Rosy the Riveter throughout the war. It's worth noting, though, that both Norman Rockwell and J. Howard Miller depicted only a very specific type of American women, namely those who were feminine, traditionally attractive, and white. All the other women who made up America's wartime labor force went unsung by the government and the media, including the hundreds of thousands of black women who had made the same sacrifices as their white colleagues. The government's recruitment campaign failed to reflect the diversity of wartime workers, but it did succeed in its mission to fill the gap left by active duty soldiers. As Newsweek reported in August of nineteen forty three, there are practically no jobs it has been found that cannot be adapted for women workers In March of nineteen forty one, just under eleven million women were employed in the US, but by August of nineteen forty four that number had risen to eighteen million. You'd think the country would owe those women a debt of gratitude, but across the board, they received lower wages than men for the same work, and once the war was over, women were forced out of their roles to make way for returning veterans. Rosie the Riveter was pushed to the side along with them and would remain largely forgotten for the next several decades. It wasn't until the early nineteen eighties that the character returned to the spotlight, and when she did, it was in the form of Miller's we Can Do It poster. It's hard to pin down exactly how it happened, but in nineteen eighty two the poster was included in a Washington Post magazine article about wartime posters in the National Archives. The image was heavily circulated after its rediscovery, and somewhere along the way it was mistakenly labeled as Rosy the Riveter, and the name just stuck. Around the same time, American feminists started looking for images from the past that they could recontextualize as symbols of female empowerment and sisterhood. It's possible that they considered Rockwell's Rosy for the job, but since that painting was still under copyright and also featured a staunchly pro war message through the inclusion of mind komp, they settled on Miller's poster instead. From that point on, the we can Do It image became what most people think of when they hear Rosy the Riveter. Even today, she holds a commanding place in pop culture, appearing in everything from advertisements to political campaigns to postage stamps. Modern depictions of Rosy have also become more inclusive over the years, casting her in a broader range of identities and underscoring the idea that the we and we can do It means all win it. I'm Gabe blues Yay and hopefully you now know a little more about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to pass them along by writing to this day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks as always, to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day in history class.

This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show that proves it's never too late to make history. I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're celebrating the birth of Rosie the Riveter, one of the most enduring icons of World War II and a versatile symbol of women's independence. The day was February fifteenth, nineteen forty three. The now famous Rosie the Riveter we Can Do It poster was first displayed in Westinghouse factories. Copies of the poster hung on the walls for just two weeks, and we're only ever seen by the working women inside the factories. But thanks to a confluent of circumstances including a hit song, a magazine cover, and second wave feminism, the wartime poster was rediscovered decades later and given new life as an American symbol of female empowerment. In nineteen forty two, the year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, nearly a million American troops were deployed overseas, and several million more were expected to follow in the years ahead. This mass exodus of able bodied men sparked a panic at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was predicted that in less preventive measures were taken, acute labor shortages would develop and the country's industry would grind to a halt by the end of nineteen forty three. Luckily, the solution was just as clear cut as the problem itself, as one government study concluded, with the exception of the few hundred thousand boys of pre draft age, this gap in the workforce will have to be plugged almost entirely by women in short order. Millions of American women eagerly rose to the challenge, having long been deprived of opportunities to join the workforce. But in the early days of the war effort, the US government thought that women might need some convincing According to an internal report from the Office of War Information, quote, these jobs will have to be glorified as a patriotic war service. If American women are to be persuaded to take them and stick to them, their importance to a nation engaged in total war must be convincingly presented. To that end, the government called upon the wartime committees of private industries and the American media to help with the task, and the resulting posters and films that they generated became some of the most compelling and well known images of World War II. Case in point is J. Howard Miller's we Can Do It poster. In late nineteen forty two, the Pittsburgh artist was hired by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company to create a series of motivational posters to hang inside its factories. The goal was to boost employee morale and productivity while also discouraging absenteeism or potential strikes. Miller produced forty two different posters in total, with each design displayed for just two weeks before being replaced by the next one. The we Can Do It poster began its two week stint on February fifteenth, nineteen forty three, when it was hung up in several Westinghouse factories in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The image on the poster shows a female worker in denim coveralls and a red and white polka dot bandana which she wears as a headscarf. Sporting a stoic expression and one raised eyebrow. The figure looks toward the viewer as she draws back her shirt sleeve and flexes her bicep. A blue speech bum above her head proclaims her now iconic catchphrase, and a Westinghouse employee id badge pinned to her lapel tells us exactly to whom she's speaking. Miller took his inspiration for the poster from Naomi Parker Freeley, a twenty year old metal stamp presser at the Alameda Naval Air Station in Oakland, California. A wire service photographer had taken her picture for a story on women in the workplace, and when Miller came across it in a newspaper, he decided to use her as a model for his latest poster, including her polka dot bandana. And while you might think it strange that Miller would use a metal stamp presser as a model for his portrait of a riveter, there is actually nothing in the poster to suggest she's a riveter at all. In fact, the women the poster was made to inspire weren't riveters either. Their job was to make plasticized helmet liners, a task that in no way required riveting. Of course, Holly the helmet liner maker doesn't have the same ring to it as Rosie the Riveter, But the truth of it is that j Howard Miller never gave the character a name at all. The illiterative Moniker was actually coined by a pair of songwriters, Red Evans and John Jacob Loebe. In a strange coincidence, Their song Rosy the Riveter was popularized by The Four Vagabonds around the same time that Miller's We Can Do at poster was tacked up in Westinghouse factories. The two works were completely unrelated at the time, as only eighteen hundred copies of the poster had been printed and no one outside the factory walls had seen them. Still, the song did cover the same subject matter as the poster, singing the praises of women going to work in record numbers to tackle jobs they'd never done before. Take a listen, long weather, Jesus of the assembly line. She's making history. What Rosie keeps a sharp lookout as advantage sitting up there on the Rosy the roses of friend Charlie. Charlie, He's a marine, Rosie is predicting Charlie working over time on the raveting machine. When they gave her a production name, she was as proud as a girl could be. There's something new about Red, White, and Blue about Rosie. According to Loeb's widow, the song wasn't based on any one woman in particular. The name Rosie was chosen simply because it went well with Riveter. But as the song became a national hit on the radio, Rosie began to take on a life of her own. She became a symbol of all the women who were doing their part to win the war, from the welders to the mechanics, to the taxi drivers, nurses, firefighters, and yes, the riveters. A few months after the song's debut, Rosie finally got a face to go with her name, but it wasn't the one we most associate her with today. Instead, the Rosy made popular during the war was created by illustrator Norman Rockwell as an apparent homage to the song. It first appeared on the cover of the Memorial Day issue of The Saturday Evening Post, and it depicts a muscular, red headed woman wearing coveralls and goggles. She sits with an old school rivet gun laid across her lap and is holding a sandwich in one hand, with the other draped over her lunch pail, which is inscribed with her name, and if you look closely. At the bottom of the image, you can see that her feet are resting on a tattered copy of Adolph Hitler's manifesto Mine komf. Rockwell's cover was enormously popular, so much so that the US government began using the art to advertise war bonds and to aid in recruiting. That usage cemented Rockwell's image as the definitive representation of Rosy the Riveter throughout the war. It's worth noting, though, that both Norman Rockwell and J. Howard Miller depicted only a very specific type of American women, namely those who were feminine, traditionally attractive, and white. All the other women who made up America's wartime labor force went unsung by the government and the media, including the hundreds of thousands of black women who had made the same sacrifices as their white colleagues. The government's recruitment campaign failed to reflect the diversity of wartime workers, but it did succeed in its mission to fill the gap left by active duty soldiers. As Newsweek reported in August of nineteen forty three, there are practically no jobs it has been found that cannot be adapted for women workers In March of nineteen forty one, just under eleven million women were employed in the US, but by August of nineteen forty four that number had risen to eighteen million. You'd think the country would owe those women a debt of gratitude, but across the board, they received lower wages than men for the same work, and once the war was over, women were forced out of their roles to make way for returning veterans. Rosie the Riveter was pushed to the side along with them and would remain largely forgotten for the next several decades. It wasn't until the early nineteen eighties that the character returned to the spotlight, and when she did, it was in the form of Miller's we Can Do It poster. It's hard to pin down exactly how it happened, but in nineteen eighty two the poster was included in a Washington Post magazine article about wartime posters in the National Archives. The image was heavily circulated after its rediscovery, and somewhere along the way it was mistakenly labeled as Rosy the Riveter, and the name just stuck. Around the same time, American feminists started looking for images from the past that they could recontextualize as symbols of female empowerment and sisterhood. It's possible that they considered Rockwell's Rosy for the job, but since that painting was still under copyright and also featured a staunchly pro war message through the inclusion of mind komp, they settled on Miller's poster instead. From that point on, the we can Do It image became what most people think of when they hear Rosy the Riveter. Even today, she holds a commanding place in pop culture, appearing in everything from advertisements to political campaigns to postage stamps. Modern depictions of Rosy have also become more inclusive over the years, casting her in a broader range of identities and underscoring the idea that the we and we can do It means all win it. I'm Gabe blues Yay and hopefully you now know a little more about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to pass them along by writing to this day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks as always, to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day in history class.