Did you know who was the real "Rosie the Riveter"?

[Playinghardball]

Geraldine Hoff Doyle, was a 17-year-old (in 1942) while she was working at the American Broach & Machine Co. when a photographer snapped a picture of her on the job. That image was used by J. Howard Miller for the “We Can Do It!” poster, released during World War II.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Doyle

[Scuba]

1. Thank you Gerry!

[phantom power]

2. that is cool

[karpool]

3. Was she a freind of Kilroy's?

[Playinghardball]

4. Did you know this about Kilroy?

Engraving of Kilroy on the WWII Memorial in Washington DC

[karpool]

5. Yeah, that is pretty cool

A national monument with an easter egg.

[snooper2]

7. Was he Kiljoy's cousin or brother?

[Victor_c3]

8. was that intentional or was that an act of graffiti?

Cool either way...

[RebelOne]

9. Yep, my stepfather had a plastic statue in the 1940s

of a pregnant girl and the bottom of the statue was engraved "Kilroy Was Here."

[Brickbat]

6. She died a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/913915--woman-whose-image-inspired-wwii-s-rosie-the-riveter-dies

But the woman in the patriotic poster was never named Rosie, nor was she a riveter. All along it was Mrs. Doyle, who after graduating from high school in Ann Arbor, Mich., took a job at a metal factory, her family said.

One day, a photographer representing United Press International came to her factory and captured Doyle leaning over a piece of machinery and wearing a red and white polka-dot bandanna over her hair.

In early 1942, the Westinghouse Corp. commissioned artist J. Howard Miller to produce several morale-boosting posters to be displayed inside its buildings. The project was funded by the government as a way to motivate workers and perhaps recruit new ones for the war effort.

Smitten with the UPI photo, Miller reportedly was said to have decided to base one of his posters on the anonymous, slender metal worker — Doyle.

For four decades, this fact escaped Doyle, who shortly after the photo was taken left her job at the factory. She barely lasted two weeks.

A cellist, Doyle was horrified to learn that a previous worker at the factory had badly injured her hands working at the machines. She found safer employment at a soda fountain and bookshop in Ann Arbor, where she wooed a young dental school student and later became his wife.

[Javaman]

10. Anti-strike campaign...

from the same wiki article...

That image — re-imagined by graphic artist J. Howard Miller while working for the Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee — may have become the basis for the poster Miller created during a Westinghouse anti-absenteeism and anti-strike campaign

[HomerRamone]

11. I always thought Tyne Daly

in the CAGNEY AND LACEY days was a dead ringer for Rosie the Riveter