Naomi Parker Fraley (August 26, 1921 – January 20, 2018) was an American woman whose wartime service as a factory worker later led historians and journalists to identify her as the most likely photographic model for the famous World War II poster often called "We Can Do It!". For much of her life she was not publicly associated with the image; that association emerged only after research in the 2010s. The poster itself, produced in the 1940s, has since become a widely recognized symbol of women's labor and wartime contribution.

Early life and wartime work

Parker was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and came of age during the Great Depression. Like many young women of her generation, she took industrial work during World War II when labor shortages opened factory jobs previously held mainly by men. Workers like Parker produced aircraft, engines and other equipment for the war effort, performing tasks that required technical skill and discipline. These women were central to wartime production even though their contributions were often underreported at the time.

Connection to the "We Can Do It!" poster

The "We Can Do It!" poster was created in 1943 as an internal morale poster for a major industrial employer and later became widely associated with the broader Rosie the Riveter concept. Decades after the war, a wartime photograph showing a woman at a machine bench attracted attention from researchers and museum curators. Scholarly inquiry and press coverage in the 2010s identified Naomi Parker as the likely subject of that photograph, and therefore a probable visual inspiration for the poster image.

Earlier attributions had named another woman, Geraldine Hoff Doyle, as the model; that identification circulated for years before being questioned. Subsequent research examined employment records, newspaper archives and the original photographs, concluding that Parker — who worked in a machine shop and is visible in a 1942 image — fits the timeline and visual evidence better than other candidates.

Later life and recognition

After the war, Parker moved into civilian life. She worked as a waitress in Palm Springs, California and raised a family, marrying three times over the decades. For much of her life she did not know that the wartime photograph or the later poster had become an iconic image. Only late in life did public recognition arrive, when researchers, journalists and museum staff confirmed the likely connection and media coverage brought her story to a wider audience. In her final years she lived in the Longview, Washington area and died in 2018 at the age of ninety-six.

Legacy and significance

Today Parker is remembered as an emblem of the many women who entered industrial work during World War II. The poster associated with her likeness has been reused and reinterpreted as a feminist and labor symbol since the late 20th century. Historians emphasize several points when discussing Parker and the image:

  • The original poster was produced for an industrial employer and was not a government recruitment poster.
  • "We Can Do It!" later became conflated in popular memory with the broader Rosie the Riveter campaign and song.
  • Misidentifications and gaps in archival records complicated efforts to name a single person as the model; the mid-2010s research brought greater clarity but also highlighted how many women's wartime stories were overlooked.

For more on the poster and its history see the We Can Do It! poster and for the broader cultural figure see Rosie the Riveter. Biographical details about Parker's origins and later life can be found in resources about Tulsa where she was born and reports concerning her postwar work in Palm Springs. Naomi Parker Fraley's story illustrates how ordinary people's lives can later become symbols of broader historical change and how ongoing research can revise widely held assumptions about the past.