Geraldine Hoff Doyle, Inspiration Behind 'We Can Do It!' Poster, Dead at 86

The woman whose face inspired the famous "We Can Do It!" poster that became a symbol of female workers during World War II and, later, American feminism has died.

Geraldine Hoff Doyle, thought to be the model for the famous poster, died Dec. 26 in Lansing, Mich., of complications from severe arthritis. She was 86 years old.

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Doyle was cast as the face of "Rosie the Riveter" in 1942 when a photo of her at work in a Michigan steel factory -- complete with a red polka-dotted bandanna -- was made into a propaganda poster to rally women to the war effort. Years later, in the 1980s, the image was adopted by the women's rights movement.

Doyle was also a mother, a cellist and, according to her daughter, a "glamour girl." She is survived by five children, 18 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. Surge Desk rounded up some other details about the woman behind the iconic poster.

1. She didn't know her face was on the poster for more than four decades. Doyle didn't know she had been immortalized until 1984, when she spotted an image of herself in Modern Maturity magazine that named it as the inspiration behind the poster. "You're not supposed to have too much pride, but I can't help have some in that poster," Doyle told the Lansing State Journal in 2002. "It's just sad I didn't know it was me sooner."

2. She quit her job at the steel factory after just two weeks. Ironically, the woman whose face helped drive American women to the workplace during World War II spent only two weeks at the southeast Michigan steel plant where she was photographed. Doyle was a cellist and quit her job at the factory when she heard that a co-worker had crushed her hand in a steel press, fearing she would be unable to play the instrument, her daughter, Stephanie Gregg, told The New York Times.

3. ... And soon after, she got married. When Doyle left the factory, she returned to her hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich., where she worked in a bookstore and a soda shop and met her future husband, according to The Washington Post.

4. Those famous muscles were not her own. Gregg says her mother was a "glamour girl" and had none of the muscular features the poster would suggest. "She was 5-foot-10 and very slender. She was a glamour girl. The arched eyebrows, the beautiful lips, the shape of the face -- that's her," she told the Times.

5. She didn't profit -- much -- off the "We Can Do It" poster. The image remains a commercial success, but Doyle, who was unaware that her face was famous for years, didn't reap any of the profits directly. She said she was too busy to take much notice of the poster. "I was changing diapers all the time," she told the Lansing State Journal in a 2002. Later in life, though, Doyle traveled around the country and gave speeches about her experience during the war.

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