Rosie the Riveter, RIP

It’s a iconic image of WWII America—a woman in a workshirt, he hair covered by a polka-dot headscarf, flexing her arm muscle and declaring “We can do it.” But the identity of the woman who inspired that 1942 poster had been in dispute. But Naomi Parker Fraley, the woman who scholars only agreed was Rosie in 2011, died Saturday at the age of 96.

Part of the problem, her front-page New York Times obituary  explained, was that there were a number of Rosies during the war. There was the song, by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, released in 1942; a Norman Rockwell illustration from that same year, and the best known image, painted for Westinghouse Electric in  1943. It is the last for which Ms. Fraley was the inspiration.

It took a historian, James J. Kimble, to track down Ms. Fraley, who said she was no looking for glory. Let’s take a moment to remember this early feminist icon.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.