Naomi Parker Fraley, the inspiration for Rosie the Riveter, passed away three years ago today (January 20, 2018), at the age of 96.

Naomi was twenty years old when she went to work in the machine shop at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California. Some of her duties included drilling, patching airplane wings, and riveting.

The actual identity of Rosie was shrouded in controversy. For over seven decades, her identity was mistakenly attributed to Geraldine Doyle from Michigan. It is only through the persistent research of a man by the name of Dr. James J. Kimble, a professor in the Department of Communication and the Arts at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, that Naomi finally got the recognition that she deserved.

There were songs, books, and posters featuring Rosie during the first half of the 1940s, which all helped to spark a social movement that saw an increase in the number of women in the workplace by 57% between 1940 and 1944.

Rosie also inspired a 1944 movie starring Jane Frazee and a 1980 documentary. In October of 2000, the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park opened in Richmond, California.