Was The Inspiration For 'Rosie The Riveter' In WWII

The woman who was the inspiration for Rosie the Riveter has Gone West at the age of 96. Naomi Parker Fraley passed away Saturday in Longview, Washington.

Fraley had been a waitress - turned - factory worker in California, and when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, she was among the first women to be assigned to the machine shop at Naval Air Station in Alameda, according to a report from People Magazine.

She posed for the famous photograph in 1942 at the age of 20, wearing the now-iconic red-and-white polka dot bandana while working on a turret lathe. The photographer was touring the station where she and her younger sister Ada repaired airplane wings and operated rivet machines. After the picture was published nationwide in newspapers, artist J. Howard Miller created Rosie, which bears a strong resemblance to Fraley's photo, down to the bandana.

But another woman, Geraldine Hoff Doyle, believed she saw herself in an uncaptioned reprint of the photo in the 1980s, and was later labeled "the real life Rosie the Riveter". Fraley told People in 2016 that she was not aware her photo had been used to create the WWII icon for more than 30 years.

The truth did not come out until Fraley met Seton Hall University professor of communications James J. Kimble in 2015. His six years of research on Rosie led him straight to Fraley, and the record was set straight.

(Image from file)

FMI: Original report