Geraldine Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Geraldine Doyle (July 31, 1924 — December 26, 2010) was the real-life model for the World War II era We Can Do It posters, an embodiment of the iconic World War II character Rosie the Riveter.

Geraldine Doyle was born in Inkster, Michigan. Her father Cornelious was an electrical contractor who died of pneumonia when she was 10 years old. Her mother, Augusta, was a composer stricken with scoliosis. After graduating from high school in Ann Arbor, in 1942 Geraldine Doyle found work as a metal presser in a Michigan factory. (As men started enlisting and being drafted into military service for World War II, women began to support the war effort by taking on roles, including factory work, that were formerly considered "male only.")

Because she was a cello player, Geraldine Doyle feared a hand injury from the metal pressing machines and soon left the factory. During the brief time she worked there a wire photographer took a picture of her. That image - re-imagined by graphic artist J. Howard Miller while working for the Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee -- became the basis for the poster Miller created during a Westinghouse anti-absenteeism and anti-strike campaign.

Soon after quitting work as a metal presser, Geraldine Doyle met and married dentist Leo Doyle, to whom she remained married until his death in early 2010.

Because the We Can Do It poster was created for an internal Westinghouse project, it did not become widely known until the 1980s, when it began to be used by advocates of women's equality in the workplace.

Geraldine Doyle didn't know she was the model for We Can Do It until 1984, when she came across the original photograph in a 1940's back issue of Modern Maturity Magazine.

The Rosie the Riveter character, based on Geraldine Doyle  and other World War II-era women who worked in factories to support the war effort, remains an icon and appeared on a 1992 postage stamp as part of a World War II series produced by the U.S. Postal Service.

Geraldine Doyle died on December 26, 2010 in Lansing, Michigan, due to complications from arthritis, aged 86.