Rosie the Riveter

Norman Rockwell painted this iconic image for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943. A muscular woman in denim and goggles rests her riveting gun across her lap while eating a sandwich, her penny loafers propped on a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf. Rockwell modeled her pose after Michelangelo's prophet Isaiah from the Sistine Ceiling.

The painting became a symbol of women's wartime labor, though Rockwell's Rosie is distinct from the "We Can Do It!" poster often confused with her. His version shows real grit: paint-smudged arms, a worn lunch pail, and an American flag backdrop. The model was 19-year-old telephone operator Mary Doyle Keefe, whom Rockwell paid $10 for the sitting.

Rockwell later felt he'd made Rosie too masculine and apologized to Keefe. The painting sold privately for years before Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas acquired it in 2002 for nearly $5 million.