‘Rosie the Riveter’ war recruitment poster girl dies at 86 …
on 12/31/2010 at 05:50 AM
Yes, sadly Peiper I can believe someone can be so clueless - take a look at her ‘resume’ - she didn’t hang around long enough to be the person her iconic picture implied - must be a liberal!
If those in power - had taken some of the steps done in WWII - the posters, Win The War on Postage Stamps, War Bonds etc - We could have stomped the enemy down within months. We did it in 1990 and came home victorious. But alas the MSM and Left realized immediately that GWB was a Reagan lite (not a Bush lite) - and set out to destroy Bush & the GWOT. And as much as they protest - they know that 9/11 is akin to WWII - not some rape in the park (see the newest Leftist idiot - now installed in the DOJ on that one).
And their stupidity will get us all killed.
Read - Once a Marine - Gunny Pop gets it right - ‘I don’t think about it, it doesn’t keep me up at night. I’m doing my job. And if I met the guy who shot me, I’d be willing to sit down and have a beer (yes the Iraqis will drink when the occasion calls for it) with him and tell him - good shot.’ [Once A Marine by Nick Popaditch]
Also the poster and the woman are so typical of the Cult of Personality Left - clueless, vapid and totally not what he/she appears to be.
I don’t know that I would call it clueless, not without seeing the original picture that the iconic poster was based on.
Hang on a second ... (frantic Googling and mouse clicking) ...
Here is Geraldine Doyle circa 1943. Wow, she’s pretty!
This is said to be the original photograph. Notice that she is operating a horizontal bed milling machine, not wielding a rivet gun. The lack of goggles or a face shield makes me wonder if this was a staged photo.
The Rosie in the poster here at BMEWS came out quite a bit darker than the original. Graphics often do that on this blog, I don’t know why. The original was not painted to make her look so Mediterranean.
Wikipedia tells us also that history has been a bit revisionist; the “We Can Do It” poster we seem to feel today that must have been widespread back then, to the point of being a generic icon of the era - DURING the era!! - was actually very localized. So localized that it never went much further than one Westinghouse factory, and was only on display for a couple weeks. If this is true, then the We Can Do It! poster was essentially unknown during the war.
Wiki also mentions that Miss Doyle was a cellist, who left the job because she feared injuring her hands. Anyone who has ever run a jackhammer, SawzAll, or other reciprocating power tool will understand her concerns. She took a job as a secretary - perfectly acceptable feminine employment in those days, and soon married a dentist - a perfectly perfect feminine “career path” in those days as well. Let us not forget that women working in factories were seen, at least at first, as, um, a bit less than female. Brawny. Bull dykish. To the point where they often had training/suggestions on keeping up their “Q factor” (Q for Qute, ie cute, ie feminine). Naturally, all this only applied to middle and upper class white women, since the darker and poorer ladies had been doing gruntwork jobs forever, and weren’t quite above the awareness horizon back then.
The real “Rosie” poster was the gritty redhead that Rockwell painted for the Saturday Evening Post. Check those brawny arms and shoulders, courtesy of hefting a 25lb power tool all day long. The grit, the grime, the denim, the pants - egad!; she’s tough as nails, common as dirt, and cute as the dickens. In your face, Mr. Hitler!
Golly, I feel like Turtler after writing such an essay. Hope I got my facts straight so as to do him proud!
see also
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/woman-who-inspired-rosie-the-riveter-dies-at-86/
and
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30doyle.html?_r=2&WT.mc_id=US-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-GDA-123010-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click“She didn’t have big, muscular arms,” [her daughter]Mrs. Gregg said. “She was 5-foot-10 and very slender. She was a glamour girl. The arched eyebrows, the beautiful lips, the shape of the face — that’s her.”
She quit the factory job after about two weeks because she learned that another woman had damaged her hands while using the metal presser, and she feared that such an injury would prevent her from playing the cello, her daughter said.
Drew ... first of all, kudos for all that. It never entered my mind to do all that once I found the photos at Google. I guess I should have gone further. It did bother me that she wasn’t aware of the icon status, that she didn’t know. My feeling was, how could she not?
The two weeks employment didn’t bother me a lot as my own mother was a riveter when we lived in Calif., but she didn’t work at that for the entire war. By 1943 we were in Ct. due to the health of my grandmother, who recovered well and went on for many years, heaven bless her.
Another thing ... I do dimly remember a poster but ... I do not at all remember the words on that poster reading We can do it. And to make things even more complicated, I think there may have been yet another poster but not this one and not the Rockwell mag. cover.
Well, anyway, well done again. The history is always very much appreciated.Now back to work trying to make heads or tails out of this darn computer.
Cheers ...Well thank god we have mexicans,chinese and indians to do those dreadful jobs now.
We get to sit back and drink sweet tea and munch on scones.
Ah, the good life,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I must be drunk to post that.
While my Dad was in the Pacific my Mom raised two daughters, raised crops with the rest of the family to feed the 8+ (the plus being the help also living on the grounds) people living in two houses on the land, and topping it all off by finishing college.
I realize that Ms Doyle wasn’t intentionally attempting to be something that she wasn’t - it was my slam at the Left who can’t (and never has it seems) done the work to make sure what they are presenting IS THE TRUTH/REALITY - as it doesn’t matter to them and has just helped to make America a Cult of Personality vapid society. Which I detest.
Oprah is now starting a network to showcase her show?!? Sort of like the Goracles network - ever catch it - it is boring as hell. Bet Ms Oprah won’t hit much better, except on her fans who don’t want to see her leave tv. I like myself (took way too long to reach that point) but I am not so insecure or narcissistic that I will do just about anything to keep in the camera’s eye. Ask John Edwards, Gary Hart and Mel Gibson (for example) what happens when you crave living in the Limelight!
I wonder how many commercials the O network will be running for Fox News? I think the number may be less than zero.
12/31/2010 at 08:07 AM
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