{"id":2750,"date":"2018-05-02T11:56:16","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T15:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:41","slug":"will-the-real-rosie-the-riveter-stand-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2018\/05\/will-the-real-rosie-the-riveter-stand-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Real Rosie the Riveter Stand Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cWe Can Do It\u201d poster from World War II is one of the country\u2019s most iconic images. For years, it was believed that the illustration of a woman in a polka dot bandana, rolling up her sleeves to work in a defense plant, was based on a photograph of Geraldine Hoff Doyle, who recognized her likeness. Media accounts repeated the idea that Doyle was the inspiration for the poster, and over time, that association solidified. But when Doyle died in 2010 and media outlets identified her this way, James J. Kimble, associate professor in the College of Communication and the Arts, decided to investigate. When he unearthed an original copy of the photograph thought to be the basis for the poster, Naomi Parker was identified on the back, not Doyle. Naomi Parker Fraley passed away in January 2018.<\/em>Seton Hall magazine editor Pegeen Hopkins spoke with Kimble to learn more about his scholarly investigation.<\/em><\/p>\n

You found the photograph in a dealer\u2019s shop?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I did. I came across a photo in Time magazine from 1942 that looked eerily similar to the one Geraldine Hoff Doyle thought she saw herself in. It looked like the same woman, just in a different pose. I spent about a week here on campus taking both photos around and showing people: \u201cIs this the same woman? Is this the same woman?\u201d Everyone agreed that it was. I did a reverse image search of the Time magazine image on Google. I had done this with the other photo numerous times, and that search had just taken me to all the websites that say the image was of Geraldine Hoff Doyle. But this photo was unknown to me; the search took me to a dealer in Memphis. I got in touch with the organization and they said they had both photos of the woman. The captions were glued to the back.<\/p>\n

What draws you to these kinds of investigations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They are an outgrowth of my scholarly work. I\u2019m a historian of propaganda, and I believe that if history is going to be valuable at all, we have to take care of it. If I can look at an image and say, \u201cOh, that\u2019s me,\u201d and everyone starts believing me just because I said so, and if it gets repeated enough times that it becomes treated as fact, that\u2019s not real history. Once I realized that the woman in the photograph, Naomi Parker, was still alive, I realized there was urgency, because by that time, she had realized that somebody else\u2019s name was attached to her image. And try as she might, she couldn\u2019t fix the record.<\/p>\n

What was your main takeaway from this investigation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just how amazing the power of belief is. We often say, \u201cseeing is believing,\u201d but it\u2019s really the reverse: \u201cbelieving is seeing.\u201d When we believe something, that influences how we see. If I look at that poster and I believe it\u2019s Geraldine Hoff Doyle in it, I\u2019m going to see evidence that supports that belief. And, if I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s Naomi Parker, and she presents me with some evidence, I\u2019m not going to see her evidence because I\u2019m believing something else first.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts about counteracting inaccurate narratives that can grow so quickly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s only likely to get worse. We need more people who are willing to be cynical. This is something I talk about with my students. I teach a seminar, Propaganda, Religion and War, and when my students come up at the end of the semester and say, \u201cI feel more cynical after taking this course,\u201d I\u2019m delighted. Because to me that means they\u2019re much less likely to take messages at face value. And they\u2019re much more likely to question when someone says, \u201cOh, I\u2019ve seen this 27 different places. It must be true!\u201d I want my students to say, \u201cHow do you know that?\u201d That\u2019s the only real force we have to maintain accuracy in the face of social media and the speed that information, or fake information, flows. It\u2019s just harder and harder to fight that fight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cWe Can Do It\u201d poster from World War II is one of the country\u2019s most iconic images.<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingWill the Real Rosie the Riveter Stand Up?<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4073,"featured_media":2751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[258,49,5,12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-2015-2019","category-arts","category-faculty","category-features","category-scholarship","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2750"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3002,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions\/3002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}