We
started importing
'We Can Do it!'
aka Rosie the Riveter
from Victora Helaine
Press in the US in1984.
It sold so well that
we couldn't get them
quickly enough so
we asked them if we
could print it here.
They said yes. We
printed it #398 We
Can Do It! in 1985.
Still in print We
sold tens of thousands
all through UK, to
Europe, rest of the
World and even back
to the US. Anyway,
all this has been
meticulously recorded
by political archivist
Lincoln Cushing in
Berkely California
and he has just sent
me this interesting
piece of information:
"A major World War
II feminist/labor
icon which has inspired
hundreds of modified
homages is popularly
known as “Rosie the
Riveter,” The problem
is, she’s not Rosie
the Riveter. Her thought
balloon says: “We
Can Do It!”, and she
was produced by Pittsburgh
artist J. Howard Miller
as an in-house poster
by the Westinghouse
corporation’s War
Production Coordinating
Committee in 1942.
It was displayed for
only two weeks in
their Midwest factories
where women were making
helmet liners. Ed
Reis, Volunteer Historian
for Westinghouse,
explained that Westinghouse
made 13 million plastic
helmet liners out
of a material called
Mycarta, the predecessor
of Formica (which
means “formerly Mycarta”).
During the war, the
most popular image
of “Rosie the Riveter”
was a painting by
Norman Rockwell that
appeared on a cover
of a May 29, 1943
Saturday Evening Post.
The phrase had entered
the public sphere
a few months earlier
on the radio as a
snappy song with that
title by Redd Evans
and John Jacob Loeb.