<P> During World War II, the "We Can Do It!" poster was not connected to the 1942 song "Rosie the Riveter", nor to the widely seen Norman Rockwell painting called Rosie the Riveter that appeared on the cover of the Memorial Day issue of the Saturday Evening Post, May 29, 1943 . The Westinghouse poster was not associated with any of the women nicknamed "Rosie" who came forward to promote women working for war production on the home front . Rather, after being displayed for two weeks in February 1943 to some Westinghouse factory workers, it disappeared for nearly four decades . Other "Rosie" images prevailed, often photographs of actual workers . The Office of War Information geared up for a massive nationwide advertising campaign to sell the war, but "We Can Do It!" was not part of it . </P> <P> Rockwell's emblematic Rosie the Riveter painting was loaned by the Post to the U.S. Treasury Department for use in posters and campaigns promoting war bonds . Following the war, the Rockwell painting gradually sank from public memory because it was copyrighted; all of Rockwell's paintings were vigorously defended by his estate after his death . This protection resulted in the original painting gaining value--it sold for nearly $5 million in 2002 . Conversely, the lack of protection for the "We Can Do It!" image is one of the reasons it experienced a rebirth . </P> <P> Ed Reis, a volunteer historian for Westinghouse, noted that the original image was not shown to female riveters during the war, so the recent association with "Rosie the Riveter" was unjustified . Rather, it was targeted at women who were making helmet liners out of Micarta . Reis joked that the woman in the image was more likely to have been named "Molly the Micarta Molder or Helen the Helmet Liner Maker ." </P> <P> In 1982, the "We Can Do It!" poster was reproduced in a magazine article, "Poster Art for Patriotism's Sake", a Washington Post Magazine article about posters in the collection of the National Archives . </P>

Where did the slogan we can do it come from