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Those who advocated the use of posters believed they directly reflected the spirit of a community. As one government official put it, “We want to see posters on fences, on the walls of buildings, on village greens, on boards in front of the City Hall and the Post Office, in hotel lobbies, in the windows of vacant stores—not limited to the present neat conventional frames which make them look like advertising, but shouting at people from unexpected places with all the urgency which this war demands.”[1] “Ideally,” another confirmed, “it should be possible to post [all over] America every night. People should wake up to find a visual message everywhere.”[2]
To control the content and imagery of war messages, the government created the Office of War Information (OWI) in June 1942. Among its responsibilities, the OWI sought to review and approve the design and distribution of government posters. Eventually, contending groups within the OWI clashed over poster design. While some embraced the poster to demonstrate the practical value and utility of art, others hoped to use the poster to demonstrate the power of advertising.
The OWI established systems of distribution modeled upon the elaborate volunteer organizations set up during the First World War.[4] National distribution utilized organizations and trades such as post offices, railroad stations, schools, restaurants, and retail store groups. At the local level, OWI arranged distribution through volunteer defense councils, whose members selected appropriate posting places, established posting routes, ordered posters from supply catalogs, and took the “Poster Pledge.” The “Poster Pledge” urged volunteers to “avoid waste,” treat posters “as real war ammunition,” “never let a poster lie idle,” and “make every one count to the fullest extent.”[5]
Over time the OWI developed six war information themes for major producers of mass media entertainment:
- The Nature of the Enemy—general or detailed descriptions of this enemy, such as, he hates religion, persecutes labor, kills Jews and other minorities, smashes home life, debases women, etc.
- The Nature of our Allies—the United Nations theme, our close ties with Britain, Russia, and China, Mexicans and Americans fighting side by side on Bataan and on the battlefronts.
- The Need to Work—the countless ways in which Americans must work if we are to win the war, in factories, on ships, in mines, in fields, etc.
- The Need to Fight—the need for fearless waging of war on land, sea, and skies, with bullets, bombs, bare hands, if we are to win.
- The Need to Sacrifice—the need for Americans to give up all luxuries and devote all spare time to help win the war.
- The Americans—what we are fighting for: the four freedoms, the principles of the Atlantic Charter, democracy, and an end to discrimination against races and religions.[6]
Across Washington, officials of the US Office of Emergency Management’s War Production Board (WPB) specialized in production-incentive images for factories. The WPB led the way in contracting for posters with commercial illustrators and designers.[7] Distributing posters and streamers free for the asking, the WPB only asked in return that factory managers “select your posting spots with care, and stick to these posting spots . . . use your imagination in displaying posters and in building up exhibits composed of two, three, or a dozen different kinds of posters.”
The posters did not carry the message that hard work would result in personal or company gain. The motivation was purely patriotic duty. Many posters also played directly on the guilt of those who were not in the military by reminding workers that, if they were not risking their lives on the battlefield, the least they could do was keep their bathroom breaks short.
Posters castigated workers for punching in late, taking long breaks, damaging the company’s equipment, and even drinking after work. Artists turned what had been considered common infractions against a company into acts of betrayal, murder, and disloyalty against the nation.
With the war’s successful conclusion in sight, posters turned toward idealized images of the comforts and conveniences of life far from the factory scene of production. At war’s end the poster returned to the familiar confines of political campaigns and bulletin boards.
[1] Walter F. Conway to Glen L. Alt, 9 November 1942, folder: OWI Misc., box 1138, E-243, NC-148, Records of the Office of War Information, RG 208, National Archives at College Park, MD (hereafter NACP).
[2] Thomas D. Mabry, “Outline for the Coordination of Government War Graphics,” 1 June 1942, folder: Division of Visual Arts, box 55, E-7, RG 208, NACP.
[3] George A. Barnes to Morse Salisbury, 16 February 1942, folder: posters, box 42, E-7, RG 208, OFF-OWI alpha subject file, NACP.
[4] OWI’s poster distribution system was designed by Fred Werts, the president of the Window Display Advertising Company, who had been in charge of government poster distribution in the First World War, and Thomas Luckenbill of J. Walter Thompson, a manager of philanthropic campaigns for, among others, the Navy Relief Society. See Mabry, “Outline for the Coordination of Government War Graphics.”
[5] US Office of War Information, Poster Handbook. A Plan for Displaying Official War Posters (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, ca. 1943).
[6] Alan Cranston to Norman Ferguson, 17 November 1942, folder: California trip, box 1078, entry E222, NC 148, RG 208, NACP.
[7] “Posters for Factories,” Time 37 (March 7, 1941): 23; “Bulletin Board Patriotism,” Time 38 (July 28, 1941): 57.
[8] The term “production soldier” was widely used on government and privately issued posters. Cyrus Hungerford has been credited as the first poster designer to use the phrase on a series of poster in 1941. See Derek Nelson, The Posters that Won the War: The Production, Recruitment and War Bond Posters of WWII (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks, 1991), 62.
[9] Richard H. Rovere, “Advertising in Wartime,” New Republic (February 21, 1944): 233.
William L. Bird Jr., Curator, Division of Politcal History, and Harry R. Rubenstein, Chair and Curator, Division of Political History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, curated the exhibition Produce for Victory: Posters on the American Home Front and published Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front (1998).