Today in 1943, a character named Rosie the Riveter appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

Today we know Rosie as an icon of World War II posters, with a determined-looking woman in a bandana flexing her muscle, saying “We can do it!”

But that wasn’t the Rosie on the magazine cover; in fact, people in the 1940s would not have put the name Rosie the Riveter together with the “We can do it!” image.

The name first came from a popular song, which celebrated the many women who were working in war factories at the time.

The song took its name from a real-life riveter for fighter planes, Rosalind Walter of Long Island, New York,

As it became popular, a lot of people became real-life Rosies.

They included Rose Will Monroe, a riveter who worked near Detroit and starred in a movie encouraging people to buy war bonds.

The Saturday Evening Post cover was also known as Rosie the Riveter.

Norman Rockwell painted a factory worker on her lunch break, sitting in front of a huge American flag with her rivet gun and stepping on a copy of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

That image was inspired by Mary Doyle Keefe, a 19 year old in Vermont (though she was a telephone operator, not a riveter).

As for the “We Can Do It” image, the one we now think of as Rosie: that was the work of J. Howard Miller, as part of a series of posters he made for manufacturer Westinghouse.

The woman in that poster was likely based on a photograph of a woman at a war plant that for many years people thought was Geraldine Hoff Doyle.

She saw the photo in the 1980s and recognized herself in it, and was even named the original, official Rosie by lawmakers in her home state of Michigan and the Michigan Women’s History Hall of Fame.

But researchers later discovered an original copy of the photo, which was taken at a Naval Air Station in Oakland, California.

And, according to the photo’s caption, this woman was Naomi Parker, later Naomi Parker Fraley.

That makes her the true inspiration for the poster.

But let’s face it, every one of the women in this story, and so many others, lived up to Rosie the Riveter’s slogan.

They could do it – and did.

Congratulations to all the recent graduates of our institutions of higher learning.

One standout in this year’s class is from Vermont State University – Castleton.

Max the cat lives near the campus; he’s made friends with a lot of students and occasionally joins campus tours for prospective students.

So the college made Max an honorary doctor of litter-ature.

Everyone Was Wrong About the Real ‘Rosie the Riveter’ for Decades. Here’s How the Mystery Was Solved (TIME)

Vermont university gives cat an honorary ‘doctor of litter-ature’ degree (WBNS via YouTube) 

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Photo by Alfred T. Palmer via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/Wikicommons