World War II Figure. She gained fame with the credit of being the model of the original "Rosie the Riveter," the personification of an American campaign to recruit female employees for the defense industry during World War II. With men employees on the battlefields of war, there was a need for the American woman to leave her at-home duties behind and go to work. Artist Norman Rockwell painted his "Rosie the Riveter" with an American flag as the backdrop and a copy of the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's 1925 manifesto, "Mein Kampf," pressed firmly under her foot. This icon painting was on the cover of "The Saturday Evening Post" on May 29, 1943. Rockwell used as his "Rosie" model a local Massachusetts girl named Mary Doyle. In a different pose with a polka-dotted red bandana, J. Howard Miller's poster of "Rosie" for Westinghouse Electric Corporation had the headline "We Can Do It!" With various form of documentation, there has been at least four women who have earned the claim of being the original "Rosie the Riveter": With a 1942 photograph in Rosie's polka-dotted bandana, Naomi Parker Fraley from California; the subject of the 1942 "Rosie Riveter" song written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, Rosalind P. Walter from New York; the model for the Westinghouse Electric Rosie, Geraldine Hoff Doyle from Michigan; and Monroe, who was noticed by actor Walter Pidgeon during a war bond campaign. To support the war effort, she agreed to appear in a promotional film commercial for purchasing war bonds, which was shown in theaters between features. The film documents her claim to being "Rosie." Although she gained a short-term fame, she never capitalized on the "Rosie" role. According to her "New York Times" obituary, which called her "Rosie the Riveter," she had become a widow with two children after her husband's death from an automobile accident. Leaving Kentucky in 1942, Monroe went to work building B-29 bombers at Ford's Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Michigan as a riveter. When Naomi Fraley died in 2018, the "New York Times" ran the headlines "…the Real Rosie the Riveter, Dies at 96." After Rosalind P. Walter's 2020 death, the "New York Times" ran an article crediting her as the real "Rosie." Following Doyle's death, several new media outlets, including the "Tallahassee Democrat," ran an article claiming Doyle as "Rosie the Riveter. After the war, Monroe continued working in jobs usually held by men. She drove a cab and founded Rose Builders, her own construction company. At the age of 50, she realized her dream of flying and obtained a pilot's license which almost was her demise. In 1978, she crashed in her small propeller plane during takeoff which resulted in a near death situation leaving her impaired. Suffering with chronic kidney failure, which was a complication from the aircraft crash, she died peacefully at her home.