His work came to the attention of the Westinghouse Company (later, the Westinghouse War Production Co-Ordinating Committee), and he was hired to create a series of posters.

Miller studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1939. Their marriage was childless surviving family members are related through Miller's siblings. Miller was married to Mabel Adair McCauley. Kimble uncovered more of Miller's personal information, setting the birth year at 1898, and the death at 1985.

For many years, little had been written about Miller's life, with uncertainty extending to his birth and death dates. Aside from the iconic poster, Miller remains largely unknown. He painted posters during World War II in support of the war effort, among them the famous 'We Can Do It!' poster. Howard Miller was an American graphic artist. The poster read, 'Together We Can Do It!' and 'Keep 'Em Firing!' In creating such posters, corporations wished to increase production by tapping popular pro-war sentiment, with the ultimate goal of preventing the government from exerting greater control over production. In response to a rumored public relations campaign by the United Auto Workers union, GM quickly produced a propaganda poster in 1942 showing both labor and management rolling up their sleeves, aligned toward maintaining a steady rate of war production. Directors of companies such as General Motors (GM) sought to minimize past friction and encourage teamwork. The workplace atmosphere at large factories was often tense because of resentment built up between management and labor unions throughout the 1930s. government called upon manufacturers to produce greater amounts of war goods. Doyle's notion that the photograph inspired the poster cannot be proved or disproved, so neither Doyle nor Parker can be confirmed as the model for 'We Can Do It!'.īackground A propaganda poster from 1942 encouraging unity between labor and management of GMĪfter the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. However, in 2015, the woman in the wartime photograph was identified as then 20-year-old Naomi Parker, working in early 1942 before Doyle had graduated from high school. Conflating her as 'Rosie the Riveter', Doyle was honored by many organizations including the Michigan Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame. Doyle thought that she had also been captured in a wartime photograph of a woman factory worker, and she assumed that this photo inspired Miller's poster. People have seized upon the uplifting attitude and apparent message to remake the image into many different forms, including self empowerment, campaign promotion, advertising, and parodies.Īfter she saw the Smithsonian cover image in 1994, Geraldine Hoff Doyle mistakenly said that she was the subject of the poster. However, during the war the image was strictly internal to Westinghouse, displayed only during February 1943, and was not for recruitment but to exhort already-hired women to work harder. Īfter its rediscovery, observers often assumed that the image was always used as a call to inspire women workers to join the war effort. The poster is one of the ten most-requested images at the National Archives and Records Administration. It was incorporated in 2008 into campaign materials for several American politicians, and was reworked by an artist in 2010 to celebrate the first woman becoming prime minister of Australia. The image made the cover of the Smithsonian magazine in 1994 and was fashioned into a US first-class mail stamp in 1999. The 'We Can Do It!' image was used to promote feminism and other political issues beginning in the 1980s. It was rediscovered in the early 1980s and widely reproduced in many forms, often called 'We Can Do It!' but also called ' Rosie the Riveter' after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. The poster was little seen during World War II. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale. ' We Can Do It!' is an American World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller's 'We Can Do It!' poster from 1943

For other uses, see We Can Do It (disambiguation).

Keep calm and carry on ww2