---
title: We Can Do It!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-can-do-it-1943/
description: A factory worker in a red bandana flexes her arm under the line 'We Can Do It!', an internal Westinghouse motivational poster later adopted as the emblem…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![We Can Do It!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/we-can-do-it-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/we-can-do-it-1943.jpg)

# We Can Do It!

A factory worker in a red bandana flexes her arm under the line 'We Can Do It!', an internal Westinghouse motivational poster later adopted as the emblem of wartime women's labor. The virtuous slogan and the plain-folks worker figure stand in for any specific production target or grievance.

- **Date:** 1943
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Westinghouse Electric / War Production Co-ordinating Committee
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Corporation](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=corporation)
- **Regime:** [Roosevelt Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=roosevelt-administration)
- **Leader:** [Franklin D. Roosevelt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=franklin-d-roosevelt)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [Labor](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=labor), [Gender and suffrage](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=gender-suffrage), [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Plain folks](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/plain-folks/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:We_Can_Do_It!.jpg), retrieved September 25, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (per Wikimedia Commons) From scan of copy belonging to the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, retrieved from the website of the Virginia Historical Society.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
We Can Do It!

[illegible — round badge on her collar, partly reading "...TINGHOUSE E...", apparently a Westinghouse employee identification badge with a small portrait]

POST FEB. 15 TO FEB. 28

WAR PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATING COMMITTEE

J. Howard Miller [artist's signature, lower left]
```

The small circular Westinghouse employee badge on her collar is too low-resolution here to read in full and is given as [illegible] beyond the partial 'TINGHOUSE E' fragment. The blue circular 'W' Westinghouse trademark at bottom center carries no additional legible text beyond the letter W.

[← United We Win](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/united-we-win-1943/) ['Wer hatte recht?' ('Who was right?') (Allied leaflet to Germany) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/wer-hatte-recht-raf-leaflet-1943/)

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- [Trois Tetes sous l'meme bonnet (three heads under the same cap)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/trois-tetes-sous-le-meme-bonnet-1789/) (1789 · Plain folks, Glittering generalities)
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- [The Great Battle of Ansong Ford: The Valor of Captain Matsuzaki](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ansong-ford-toshikata-1894/) (1894 · Glittering generalities)
- ['The Congress Cross or "Swastik"' (Pickings from the Hindi Punch, Bombay, February 1896)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hindi-punch-congress-swastik-1896/) (Feb 1896 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Un combate en el río Zapote (A Fight on the Zapote River), Blanco y Negro](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/un-combate-en-el-rio-zapote-1898/) (Jul 9, 1898 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)