Rockwell’s ‘Rosie the Riveter’ Model Dies
FEATURE
The model for Norman Rockwell’s iconic 1943 “Rosie the Riveter” painting has died, the New York Daily News reports.
Mary Doyle Keefe, 92, reportedly died April 20 in Simsbury, CT.
The image symbolized the millions of American women who went to work during World War II. One U.S. government advertisement in the 1940s asked women: “Can you use an electric mixer? If so, you can learn to operate a drill.”
Keefe grew up in Arlington, Vt., where she met Rockwell and posed for his painting when she was a 19-year-old telephone operator. The painting graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943.
The famed image depicts a red-haired Rosie in denim overalls with “a sandwich in her left hand, her right arm atop a lunchbox with the name ‘Rosie’ on it, a rivet gun on her lap and her feet resting on a copy of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto ‘Mein Kampf.'”
Rockwell’s painting inspired other images, including J. Howard Millers’ “We Can Do It! poster, an image used to inspire worker morale.
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