Naomi Parker Fraley, the woman who is credited as the real-life inspiration behind the famous Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It” poster, died this weekend at the age of 96. While her face became a symbol of female empowerment, her identity only became public in 2016, when the communications professor James J. Kimble tracked down a photograph showing a young woman in a polka-dotted bandana at in a Navy machine shop in Alameda, California during the Second World War. Working with the California Genealogical Society, Kimble says, he discovered that Fraley was still alive and living in Northern California with her sister, who also worked in the wartime shop. "I met the two of them [and] they were gracious and enthusiastic and eager to tell their story," he says. “The women of this country these days need some icons,” Fraley told People magazine in an interview. “If they think I’m one, I’m happy about that.”
Naomi Parker Fraley, right, with her younger sister, Ada Wyn Parker Loy in 2016 John D. Fraley
