The “We Can Do It” poster was created in 1942 by J. Howard Miller during World War II and was created to influence feminism in America. During World War 2, factories suffered a significant loss of workers, which caused the demand for labor. Women stood up to take their jobs while the men fought. The poster was made to raise awareness of what the women have done during the wartime period. Due to the events happening at the time, the poster wasn’t super famous until the 1980s. Miller created the poster with passion and mindfulness to make the poster stand out among others. The poster represents a woman some call “Rosie the Riveter” (Aguierre), who creates a sense of power and trust. The sign later highly influenced the fight for women's suffrage …show more content…
The yellow background of the poster captivates the reader's attention and leaves a residual mark on the audience. The bright yellow makes it easy for people to look at the poster once and remember it. The yellow resembles positivity and hope for a new future. The vibrant yellow color isn’t the only way J. Howard Miller developed this poster; red, white, and blue were used to simulate different meanings. Miller's use of the red and white headband creates a sense of power and strength to emphasize the main message. Red is used for the woman's bandana and lip color and is designed to draw the viewer's attention and symbolize strength …show more content…
Howard Miller, in 1942, was prestigious in the fight for feminism and wartime motivation, which now stands as a highly influential symbol of feminism and empowerment. The bright colors that Miller applied, such as yellow, red, white, and blue, were a way to forge emotions and patriotism among the women in factories. The vibrant yellow sparks a feeling of hope while also leaving a lasting impact on the audience, while the red, white, and blue provide patriotism. Miller’s poster represented thousands of women who tirelessly worked during World War II through the powerful imagery of the brave and fierce woman. With the help of Miller, women were seen for what they had accomplished and sacrificed for America during World War II. Miller developed a distinct characterization of the woman in the poster to create a more human feeling that the audience can relate to. The woman was shown as someone who could be trusted, influencing the audience more. The powerful word choice also affects the audience's feelings toward the poster as the word “we” includes the audience, developing a robust and appealing message. The iconic poster will forever be a powerful reminder of the contributions of women during World War II. J. Howard Miller's thoughtful use of color, imagery, and relatability ensures that the iconic poster continues to inspire people to this
Rosie the riveter was the face of recruiting women into the Armed Forces during WWII. The increasing demand for soldiers was not being filled fast enough by just males. As a result, between the years 1940 and 1945, the percentage of female service members increased from 27% to 37%. Even on the civilian side of things, the ratio of married working women outside of their homes increased to one out of every four. The population of women that did not join the war was prompted by Rosie the Riveter’s iconic image of working in one of the many munitions industries throughout the US.
Even though the real-life munitions worker was one of the basis of the Rosie campaign it took on a persona of its own. This persona was a fictitious character that was strong and bandanna-clad (“American Women in World War II”). Rosie was one of the most success recruitment tools in American history, and one of the most iconic images of working women during World War II. The most prominent image of Rosie the Riveter popularized in American culture was the version featured on the “We Can Do It!” posters created by the United States government (Hawkes). The Rosie the government made has a resemblance to Rockwell’s Rosie, but she is less masculine. This propaganda poster of Rosie the Riveter employed by the United States government was popular because she appealed to the sense of patriotism and common goal of the Second World War. Upgraded Rosie also showed that women could retain their femininity and womanhood in their service. Every Rosie the Riveter image played to this prevailing sense of patriotism that abounded in America during World War II. Patriotism was used as a primary motivator to recruit women for war work. Most American women had husbands, brothers, sons, and fiancés fighting on the frontlines of the war, so the women felt compelled to provide to make a contribution as citizens at home. Most of the time woman had to take care of their children and household while
One such propaganda poster that was spread across Great Britain features a female factory worker with her arms spread wide that reads: “Women of Britain come into the factories”. This particular poster targeted an audience of women and was used to persuade woman to become more involved in the workforce. By showing the young woman wearing a factory uniform while posing in a victorious manner, the poster has the effect of giving future female factory workers the impression that woman participating in factory work will lead to a victory for Great Britain and its Allies in the war.
Steve Miller was born October 5, 1943 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Steve’s family was very involved with music. His mother was a jazz-influenced singer, and his father was a pathologist that very interested in the world of music. Dr. Miller was friends with many musicians which greatly aided in young Steve’s development in music. One of his father’s friends included Les Paul, who showed Steve some chords on a guitar at the age of five. Les Paul proved to be a very valuable mentor to Steve, and he became a good friend of the family. When Steve was seven his family moved to Dallas, where he was exposed to a different type of artists that usually did not visit Milwaukee. His father took him to see greats such as Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, and Carl Perkins. Steve was particularly drawn to T-Bone Walker, the father of Texas-style electric blues. This proved to be very influential in Steve’s life, and it is evident by the blues-sound that he exhibited in his guitar playing.
The film titled, “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter”, looks at the roles of women during and after World War II within the U.S. The film interviews five women who had experienced the World War II effects in the U.S, two who were Caucasian and three who were African American. These five women, who were among the millions of women recruited into skilled male-oriented jobs during World War II, shared insight into how women were treated, viewed and mainly controlled. Along with the interviews are clips from U.S. government propaganda films, news reports from the media, March of Time films, and newspaper stories, all depicting how women are to take "the men’s" places to keep up with industrial production, while reassured that their duties were fulfilling the patriotic and feminine role. After the war the government and media had changed their message as women were to resume the role of the housewife, maid and mother to stay out of the way of returning soldiers. Thus the patriotic and feminine role was nothing but a mystified tactic the government used to maintain the American economic structure during the world war period. It is the contention of this paper to explore how several groups of women were treated as mindless individuals that could be controlled and disposed of through the government arranging social institutions, media manipulation and propaganda, and assumptions behind women’s tendencies which forced “Rosie the Riveter” to become a male dominated concept.
The poster translated in english as, “Women! Millions of men without work. Millions of children without a future. Save the German Family. Vote Adolf Hitler!”. The words, as well as the image of the poster, evoked the emotion of what German families were going through at the time. Hitler and the Nazi party used this kind of propaganda as a campaign tactic to gain popularity in Germany.
The first aspect that we notice when looking at the poster is the color scheme. The black and white image conveys a feeling of desperation. Even the bold blue text at the bottom, which reads, “Buy
The role of women in American history has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries. In less than a hundred years, the role of women has moved from housewife to highly paid corporate executive to political leader. As events in history have shaped the present world, one can find hidden in such moments, pivotal points that catapult destiny into an unforeseen direction. This paper will examine one such pivotal moment, fashioned from the fictitious character known as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who represented the powerful working class women during World War II and how her personification has helped shape the future lives of women.
started to produce more and more, and many men that worked in the factories were drafted into the army, leaving open jobs. With such high demands came propaganda that would call for one unlikely group of people, who were believed that their place was inside the home, women. One poster that delivered “The Need to Work” theme greatly and was able to be “… shouting at people from unexpected places with all urgency...” (Every Citizen a Soldier) was the “Soldiers Without Guns” poster. This poster depicted three strong and proud looking women who work attire for jobs usually given to men, such as welding or a factory job. The poster successfully encouraged women to take on such jobs because if the ladies in the poster were able to look this strong and have such equality, then any women could too. When it depicted the equality for women, it pushed other women to go out and find work because that was one thing wanted during that time. The propaganda successfully conveyed a convincing message because women would see it and be drawn to the idea of the equal opportunity for jobs and fill the much needed openings. These jobs that needed workers to aid the war effort eventually were filled up by millions of women, “…the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home.” ( www.history.com). The need for work was not
World War II propaganda posters were used mainly for three reasons: to invoke public sympathy for the war cause, to help finance the war, and by encouraging people to support the war. Many t...
The images created by propaganda poster had a dramatic effected on convincing many women to choose nursing as a career and dedicate their efforts to serve their country by enlisting in the Red Cross and the United States military. “Over 350,000 American women volunteered to serve in the armed forces during World War II. More than 59,000 of those women were registered nurses, who volunteered to serve in the United States Army Nurse Corps” (Monahan and Greenlee pg.
During the war, men were off fighting for America, and the women were left behind to take over their jobs in the factories. Women proved that they can do almost all of the same jobs as men. Rosie the Riveter, a picture of a woman flexing with a caption of “We Can Do It,” became the symbol for women all across the nation. After the war, years later, women began to receive equal pay for the same jobs that the men were doing. Many other minority groups, such as African Americans, played a huge
As scores of men left the country, they left behind massive gaps in the United States workforce. The government noticed this problem, and drafted their infamous Rosie the Riveter posters (A&E Television Networks). Rosie the Riveter immediately became famous. The poster depicted a muscular, independent woman. The United States Government’s posters showed the necessity for female workers in the absence of men (A&E Television Networks). That being said, Rosie the Riveter became the most important advertisement for the production of materials for the war materials (A&E Television Networks). As more women joined the working class, the press strived to persuade them that they could do the work typically regarded as a man’s job and still be considered feminine(A&E Television Networks). It may seem like a silly idea, but women were still overall regarded as the weaker sex. Until World War II, they had not yet had the chance to prove themselves to society.
Symbolism plays a major role in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Several symbols are used to show the oppression of women by men as well as the struggle against that male dominated society. While there are a plethera of symbols that could be cited from the text to support this, there are a few especially important symbols throughout the story that lend support to the woman's suffrage theme. The wallpaper itself is symbolic of the mental barrier that men attempted to place on women during the 1800s. The color yellow is often associated with illness or weakness, and the writer's mysterious sickness is a symbol of man's oppression of the female sex. The two windows from which the writer loooks out of, observing the world but not participating in it, represent the possibilities of women if seen as equals by the opposite sex. The yellow wallpaper, about which the writer says, "I never saw a worse paper in my life," is a symbol of the mental restrictions that men attempted to enforce upon women (pg 423). Gilman writes, "The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, ...
This essay will be focusing on women who worked during the world war two and their roles in the community. Not only would it focus on their roles it will also look at the fashion of these women; what they wore to work during the war, after the war and what is being worn to work nowadays. The research on the fashion change relates to my work the most as i’ve tried to portray the changes in the fashion of these working class women, what it means and how it shows off women as a being. Even though most of the women that worked during the second world war were said to be in the middle-class range this essay will focus on the working-class females in the society. One of the major subject matter in this essay will be the “Rosie the Riveter” poster although created by various artist during the World War II, the meanings in each posters mirrored the next. Also this essay will reflect on some of the numerous female war artists that used women to portray strength, elegance and raw femininity.