Thursday, April 23, 2015

Norman Rockwell Model dead at age 92

The model for Norman Rockwell’s iconic 1943 “Rosie the Riveter” painting has died.

Mary Doyle Keefe, 92, died Tuesday in Simsbury, Conn., after a brief illness, according to her family.

The famed image symbolized the millions of American women who went to work during World War II.

The iconic 1943 "Rosie the Riveter" poster.HANDOUT/REUTERS
The iconic 1943 "Rosie the Riveter" poster.

Keefe grew up in Arlington, Vt., where she met Rockwell and posed for his painting when she was a 19-year-old telephone operator. The painting graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943.

It shows a red-haired Rosie in blue jean work overalls sitting down, with a sandwich in her left hand, her right arm atop a lunchbox with the name “Rosie” on it, a rivet gun on her lap and her feet resting on a copy of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kampf.”

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