What is the name of this image by an American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell painted in 1943?

Rosie the Riveter was an allegorical cultural icon of World War II, representing the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II. Rosie the Riveter is used as a symbol of American feminism and women's economic advantage. The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb.

Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" received mass distribution on the cover of the "Saturday Evening Post" on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell's illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her penny loafer a copy of Adolf Hitler's manifesto, "Mein Kampf". Her lunch box reads "Rosie"; viewers quickly recognized that to be "Rosie the Riveter" from the familiar song.

Rosie is holding a ham sandwich in her left hand, and her blue overalls are adorned with badges and buttons: a Red Cross blood donor button, a white "V for Victory" button, a Blue Star Mothers pin, an Army-Navy E Service production award pin, two bronze civilian service awards, and her personal identity badge.

In 2002, the original painting sold at Sotheby's for nearly $5 million.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

Test your knowledge

What are your thoughts on this subject?

9 Comments

Denise Currie

Love Rockwell's work , very iconic and easily recognised

Francie Carlson

My mom was a Rosie the Riveter! She and three of her best friends drove milk wagons during World War II. Mom was also a prison guard at a POW Camp. Our county fair ground was turned into a POW Camp during World War II. One of the buildings was turned into a cannery. That’s the building mom worked in.

Monty Mathias

Many critics pan Rockwell for his frequent sentimentalization in his art, but his humor and exaggerated characterizations capture generational cornerstones.

elizawheeler

And the women were thanked by being thrown out of their jobs. Even those women who had lost husbands to the war, and had children to support, were let go because the returning men "needed" the jobs.