The real Rosie the Riveter, Naomi Parker Fraley, dead at 96

Naomi Parker Fraley, who served as the model for Rosie the Riveter, died Monday. (US Gov / Getty)

Naomi Parker Fraley, a California waitress who served as the model for Rosie the Riveter, died Saturday in Washington.
She was 96.

For decades, the identity behind the iconic symbol was unknown. A Michigan factory worker, Geraldine Hoff Doyle, identified herself as Rosie in the 1980s.

Fraley was finally recognized as the real Rosie in 2016 after being discovered by James Kimble, a professor at Seton Hall University.

“She was just delighted that someone was willing to listen to her story and believe her,” Kimble told the Daily News Monday.

The Tulsa, Okla., native began working in the machine shop at the Naval Air Station in Alameda shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

A year later, she posed for a photo in the now-legendary red-and-white polka dot bandana.

In 2011, Fraley attended a reunion of “Rosies,” where she saw that the “We Can Do It!” poster was being credited to Doyle.

“She tried to correct them and she hit a brick wall,” Kimble told The News.

“Her identity had been stolen.”

Eventually, he was able prove that Fraley was, in fact, the real Rosie, which he reported in a 2016 article in Rhetoric & Public Affairs.

“I just wanted my own identity,” Fraley told People that year.

“I didn’t want fame or fortune, but I did want my own identity.”