Picturing World Wars: The Great War & The Greatest Generation at War
Analyzing Propaganda Posters from WWI and WWII
National Archives
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WWI Propaganda Posters
Doc A – WWI Propaganda
If You Want to Fight! Join the Marines
1918
Records of the U.S. Food Administration
National Archives Identifier: 512491
Additional Details from our Exhibits and Publications:
Real men fight
On Howard Chandler Christy’s World War I poster, a beautiful young woman in a marine sergeant’s
uniform beckons volunteers to join the Marines. During World War I, the Marine Corps almost
doubled its strength with the addition of 60,189 men.
Doc B – WWI Propaganda
Doc C – WWI Propaganda
Doc D –
WWI Propaganda
Doc E – WWI Propaganda
Team Work Wins! Your work here makes their
work over there possible. With your help they
are invincible. Without it they are helpless.
Whatever you make, machine gun or harness,
cartridges or helmet, they are waiting for it.
Issued by authority Ordinance department, U.S.
Army
ca. 1917 - ca. 1919
Records of the U.S. Food Administration
National Archives Identifier: 512730
Document contains: 1 page.
Doc F – WWI Propaganda
Doc G – WWI Propaganda
That Liberty Shall Not Perish From The Earth
1918
Records of the U.S. Food Administration
National Archives Identifier: 512618
Additional Details from our Exhibits and Publications:
New York in flames?
Not really. The German air and submarine attack depicted by Joseph Pennell in this 1918 poster never
actually took place. By evoking this potential threat, however, the poster brought the war home to the
American people and underlined the urgency of buying bonds during Liberty Loan drives. The
Government printed 2 million copies of this enormously popular poster.
WWII Propaganda Posters
Doc A – WWII Propaganda
Doc B – WWII Propaganda
Doc C – WWII Propaganda
Plant A Victory Garden. Our Food Is Fighting.
1941-1945
Records of the Office of Government Reports
National Archives Identifier: 513818
Additional Details from our Exhibits and Publications:
“Food will win the war and write the peace,” announced Agriculture Secretary Claude Wickard in a
statement to the press in early 1943.
Even before the United States entered the war in 1941, U.S. farmers were producing at record levels to
supply the food needs of the Allies. After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, getting food and
equipment to our troops strained production and distribution systems to their limits. Farm labor was in
short supply as men left for military service. The Office of Civil Defense was given primary
responsibility for convincing nonfarm families to produce and preserve some of their food at home.
Although by the 1940s most people in the United States lived in towns and cities, many felt some
romantic nostalgia for the farm life their parents and grandparents had left. Food rationing, begun in
1942 by limiting purchases of coffee and sugar and later expanded to other products, added practical
necessity to nostalgia. Patriotic fervor was contagious and victory gardens sprang up everywhere.
Text adapted from “Victory Gardens in World War II” in the April/May 1986 National Council for the
Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.
Doc D – WWII Propaganda
Doc E – WWII Propaganda
Doc F – WWII Propaganda
Someone Talked!
1941-1945
Records of the Office of Government Reports
National Archives Identifier: 513824
Additional Details from our Exhibits and Publications:
Someone talked!
This World War II poster by artist Henry Koerner dramatizes the consequences of careless talk, a
popular theme in wartime information. This poster won a national award from the Museum of Modern
Art.
Document contains: 1 page
Doc G – WWII Propaganda
Doc H – WWII Propaganda