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.
This 1943 poster was issued by Westinghouse Electric and the War Production Co-ordinating Committee as an internal motivational sheet, signed by J. Howard Miller, with the note 'POST FEB. 15 TO FEB. 28'. A factory worker in a red bandana flexes her arm under the line 'We Can Do It!'. It encourages wartime factory work. Glittering generalities and plain folks are tagged: a virtuous slogan and an ordinary worker figure stand in for any specific production target.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Westinghouse Electric / War Production Co-ordinating Committee
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Labor, Gender and suffrage, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, 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.
