Presentation
Introduction
MR. JAY ANTLE: Good evening, everyone. My name is Jay Antle from Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. And tonight we’re going to talk about World War II Home Front Posters and about the home front more generally.
What I am going to try to suggest to you tonight is that World War II Home Front Posters were important in making every citizen a solider and connecting Americans to the war effort, and that was the goal of these posters. And I’m also going to show you how these posters changed over the course of time.
Why Posters?
Why posters? Why do we spend so much time on posters? Why was there a Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit on posters?
Well, this slide here gives you one idea why. At the -– actually, even before the war begins, some of you may already know that before the first bomb dropped on Pearl Harbor as early as late 1939, emergency appropriation bills were sent through Congress to help the country re-arm, particularly to re-build the Navy.
And so you are already beginning to have a call for more workers and a call for Americans to be cognizant of defending North America even before the bombs drop on Pearl Harbor. And as a result, you are already beginning to have people in the federal government wonder, how can we get Americans committed to the cause; first of all of defense, and then after Pearl Harbor, to actually support the war itself?
And the reason the posters become so important in this process is because posters were considered to be a very democratic medium -- democratic with a small d -- mainly that posters could be put anywhere. Any American could be exposed to a poster no matter how wealthy or how poor they were. And what we see here is an example of that. Out here on the street, we have a recruiting poster for the US Navy, and here we have a gentleman of, shall we say, modest means walking by and seeing the poster.
Posters, they were considered, in some ways, being the most democratic and the most universal means for government to reach individual Americans for the duration of World War II. By the way, I’ve read about this poster itself. This is actually one of several posters from World War I that was recycled for World War II.
Howard Chandler Christy
This one is done by Howard Chandler Christy, who was one of the most important graphic artists in the United States circa 1910-1920. This is one of the so-called Christy Girls. And I show them to my students all the time. They love the sort of double meaning here, which I think you all are probably getting. You know you join the Navy because, well, you should. But, also, if you join the Navy, she tends to like men who are in uniform. Do you get that? Yeah. So sometimes these posters had double meanings. Although, as we’re going to see as World War II goes on, the graphic designers who design these posters are going to try to focus more and more simply on single messages. And we’ll talk about why that happens a bit later on.
World War I Posters
Okay. I’m going to show you, first of all, just as a way of comparison, a couple of images from World War I. By the way, if any of you have not yet been to the World War I Museum in Kansas City, you should. They have an extensive collection of World War I posters that are well worth your time.
What you see here is the kind of -- to use the modern phrase -- scare tactics that you found fairly at a wide-spread basis in the posters of World War I, issued by both the US government and by private companies. Here we see, you know, Independence Hall -- seemingly, right? -- on fire and bodies -- headless bodies spilling blood on the sidewalk in front. Not much left to the imagination here. And if you want to keep America safe from this, you buy Liberty Bonds, or else.
Another example from World War I, Help Stop This, and here we have the somewhat simian, look at the way he is kind of hunched over. The arms are low, a bloody dagger in the hand. What we have here is the Hun, as Germans were stereotyped during World War I. These kind of blunt, very stark, scare the living you-know-what out of you images during World War II tend not to be the -- excuse me, World War I -- tend not be the norm during World War II. Members of the Office for War Information, the OWI, which would come to coordinate much of the poster production during World War II, looked back with some regret at some of the hyper-patriotism these posters inspired back during World War I. You wanted to motivate the American people. You didn’t want to scare them to death. That would be one real distinction.
I'll show you some exceptions to that rule, but most of the posters of World War II don’t quite go to this level of trying to scare. Also, as we’re going to notice when we get to World War II posters, many of those World War II posters are going to be much more inspired by the graphic techniques of advertising, not so much the World War I sort of idea that you take great artists and you imitate great art on war posters. In World War II, the art itself is going to look much more like what you would see coming out of a page of Time or Life magazine. And there would be some controversy in places like the Office of War Administration about how that would work.
Early World War II Posters
See, here is an example of that somewhat older notion of a more stylized art that makes it actually into World War II. This is an early poster, 1941. It actually comes out before the bombs drop on Pearl Harbor as part of this attempt to get Americans to get defense-industry jobs as more and more planes and particularly ships are being churned out by late 1940 to early ’41. America’s Answer! Production, with this sort of disembodied glove turning a wrench. Huh, what? Now, to us today, that might -- that notion of being confused by an image like this might seem odd, but let me show you some other images to make this point.
Now, you all tell me, what is this poster about?
(Audience response unintelligible.)
MR. JAY ANTLE: Right. Okay. This is supposed to be a German. Right. And we know that how? The helmet. Well, this is a poster that came out in early 1942, and there was a poll taken by the OWI to see how people -- what messages people received from this poster. The message they got was, we need to work harder, because our boss is watching us. Okay. Now, keep that in the back of your mind as we go to this next image.
What’s this one about? It’s about production.
(Audience response unintelligible.)
MR. JAY ANTLE: I mean, the poster is -- that’s exactly right, the poster is supposed to have workers understand that their production is as important as what is being done by frontline soldiers, whether it be in Western Europe or in the Pacific theater of operations. A lot of people who saw this poster didn’t quite know what this was about, either. In fact, there was several folks who responded that this seems to be about gangsters somehow, you know, with the Tommy guns, right.
So what happened over the course of World War II is you have really debates in groups like the OWI, which, again, is the official propaganda arm of the federal government during World War II as to what kind of images, what sort of art do you want to put on these posters. Ultimately, the graphic artists from the advertising industry win out, partially because they know how to get across simple messages to, not to put it too simply, simple people. Okay. And so some of the more grandiose, abstract and arguably more artistic themes of the first year or two of poster art, that’s all gone by ’43, ’44 and ’45. Things went much more basic, much more photographic and arguably more realistic and simply more simplistic.
World War II Advertising
Now, I’m showing you this to give you an example of what was going on in advertising during World War II. Can you see this one flying today very well? Will this succeed today in the pages of Men’s Health magazine?
Okay. This is an ad which is aimed theoretically, it seems to me, at women workers, right? But it’s for Camel cigarettes, and this -- even though there is a lot of text here, you couldn’t put all this text on a poster. The graphic design and the sort of almost photographic artwork you are going to see here will be the kind of art and the kind of layout you will see in posters for the duration of the war after late 1942. This is the style which will come to dominate American posters. And don’t forget, folks, for Camel cigarettes, They’re easy on the throat and always taste so good.
Here’s what I mean. This is a long way from America’s Answer! Production poster. This is a long way from Give ‘em both barrels. This is simple, sappy, cute. Too cute, but the idea here is, of course, for Americans to grow their own vegetables in victory gardens. I’ll say more about those later on. Grow Your Own, Can Your Own, but what’s going to attract people to this poster -- it’s going to be, again, the impossibly cute matching mother and daughter. That’s the image. It is almost kind of the good girl art, at least with the mother, that you would find during the same period.
And so this is what I mean by going to the advertising style. It will dominate poster art by the time we get to late ’42 and for the duration of the war.
Another example, as most of you or many of you may be aware, during World War II you really couldn’t buy a personal car. In fact, the last car coming off the production lines that was earmarked for personal use comes off in March of ’42 and that’s it. So for the duration of the war, corporations like Oldsmobile, GM convert their factories and begin making things like tanks.
Rationing
Okay. Now, I’m going to talk about rationing, and we’ll talk about how rationing makes its way into poster art. Now, I suspect almost everyone in here, you either personally remember these books because they were issued to your family or these books have become family heirlooms. These are the ration books that were issued by the Office of Price Administration, and you would get stamps to make sure you would go out and buy, whether it be sugar or whatever the case might be, down at your local store.
This is not a poster, but there was plenty of advice being given to harried housewives about how to make their points, how to make their stamps go further. This was a small cookbook put out by the National Livestock and Meat Board trying again to get housewives to be able to make their meat points go further. And in some parts of the country, what you got actually for meat, you didn’t get actually ration stamps. You got tokens, little red and blue tokens.
Perhaps the darkest moment of World War II, except, of course if you were in combat, the invention of SPAM. Here to, of course, is a creative way that American corporations tried, in fact, to deal with scarcity and that is to make palatable what would not have been considered so palatable before the war. Spiced ham, as it was first called and later called SPAM, and it’s with us to this day. You will find lots of recipes during World War II of how to make SPAM in various exotic ways.
We see posters like this for homemakers and it would be both about conservation, about salvage and we’ll talk a little bit later on. And in the early parts of the war, you would find advice about air raid protection, particularly if you lived on the west coast. In the early years of the war and in some places through most of 1942, you would have periodic blackout drills. And remember, folks, you know Japanese submarines do occasionally surface and open fire on Santa Barbara, California, oil refineries. You have the Japanese actually putting incendiary bombs on hot air balloons, several of which landed in Oregon and caused forest fires.
Here is a window sticker that was issued by the Office of Price Administration that was encouraging housewives and by implication the whole family, to stick to the rationing program. Rationing, though, was about two things. It was about, of course, making sure there were enough strategic materials broadly defined to help win the war, but also to make sure that the prices could be controlled. Because in an atmosphere of scarcity, if prices were not controlled, there was the opportunity for runaway inflation, because people who could afford to buy certain things would buy them and the prices in that market would go up. And so you might put this in your window if you were going to be a true patriotic American and guarantee you would pay no more than top legal prices as set by OPA. I will not accept any rationing goods without giving up my own personal ration stamps. And according to data from World War II, about 65 percent of Americans violated those pledges at some point during the war. I’m not going to be asking for anybody to confess, but, you know, if you’ve got stories, I would love to hear them.
Okay. Here is an OWI poster about making things last. Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do. Our Labor and Our Goods are Fighting. Now, to people who had grown up in the Great Depression, this was no great sacrifice, right? The notion of having to actually reuse or repair jeans or old shoes was nothing that would be considered startling. I suspect for many of my students today, this would be hell on earth.
I love this poster, because there is so much going on here. On one hand, the message is obvious, right? Cut back on travel, and you don’t travel, because you’re going to be saving gasoline that can be better used to help win the war. Also, you’ll put less stress on your tires. Rubber is at a premium during -- especially early years of the war. The gas shortage is why you actually have a nationwide speed limit at 35 miles per hour during most of World War II. But there is a lot more going on here. That’s the message, but how is the message being delivered? What we see here behind this mother, ‘cause she is the mother of someone that seems to be in combat, Won’t you give my boy a chance to get home? Behind her head, you have a banner. What’s that banner signify?
(Audience response unintelligible.)
MR. JAY ANTLE: That’s right. There is a soldier, sailor, airman from this house who is serving. Blue star -- if that blue star was a gold star that would mean what?
(Audience response unintelligible.)
MR. JAY ANTLE: That would mean that that serviceman had died in service of his country. Now, many of you may be aware that this -- these banners are coming back. They were not used -- I’m not aware that they were used much in the Vietnam War, but they’re coming back now. I’ll tell you, on my street back in Lawrence, there are two homes that have these banners in windows. And one unfortunate thing about -- and some of you may be aware of how this works, about when someone passes away and sometimes the heirlooms don’t go to who they should. I unfortunately find an awful lot of these banners, even gold star, banners showing up on Ebay, and it’s very sad. But if anything should stay in the family, it’s these sorts of artifacts. But -- so there is a lot going on here in this poster: the appeal of the woman through her eyes, the banner behind her head.
Love this one. When you ride ALONE, you ride with Hitler. Join a car sharing club today. The argument here is pretty clear. Carpool. Save gasoline. If you drive yourself, you waste gas and thus hurt the allied war effort. What posters do during the World War II is to try to make every citizen into a patriotic soldier on the home front. And so almost every act, whether it be how much sugar you put in your coffee, how much you drive, how much paper you’re turning in for recycling, these are all patriotic acts. Patriotism can be measured by the way you perform doing these seemingly, menial day-to-day tasks.
By the way, this poster was recently altered by Bill Mahr, for those of you who watch HBO, who published a book, If you ride ALONE, you ride with bin Laden. Making the argument that America’s dependence on foreign oil today is what has gotten us into various messes with the Middle East. So this image here is of particular modern day relevancy, it seems to me.
Recycling
Now, this image appeared on the promotional posters for this event through no coordination between us. Amazing how that happens. We’re ready, what about you? Join the Schools at War Program. In other words, America’s children, school children can have a prominent role in helping win the war, too. In particular, here we have the high school quarterback there in the middle who has old rubber boots, although they don’t look that old to me, rubber tubing, old pans that can be turned in. All can be recycled and made into items to help win the war. There on the right, we have the impossibly thin student council representative who is going to be selling war bonds to help win the war.
As historians, we sort of regret some of the paper drives of World War II. Lots of documents were lost. And as a comic book collector, lots of comic books were lost that I would have loved to have had but the greater good was, of course, served.
What’s that?
(Audience response unintelligible.)
MR. JAY ANTLE: That’s right. I have trouble explaining this one to my students. The way this works was that you, as a housewife -- this poster is aimed at housewives. When you were done cooking your bacon or frying your hamburgers or whatever, you were to accumulate your grease in a Folgers coffee can or a metal can that you had around the house. And whenever you were up to a pound or so, you were supposed to take this down to your butcher who would then pay you either in cash or sometimes in ration stamps for that. And that fat would then be broken down into glycerin, which then could be used as a component for explosives. So here your waste fats are, in fact, being used to help build explosives in places like De Soto, Kansas, down at the Army ammunition works that were there.
There was -- it was a great Hollywood magazine during World War II. There was a three-page article on Helen Hayes, a very famous actress during World War II and actually post-war, showing how she saved her waste fats. And so the idea was if Helen Hayes, this famous actress, can save her bacon grease, well, surely so can I.
And there were lots of these Hollywood magazines, glamour magazines, lots of articles about Hollywood actors and actresses sacrificing, turning in scrap, giving blood, or Helen Hayes turning in her bacon grease.
American Farmers
Variations on the same theme, right? Grow it yourself; plant a farm garden, now. America needs more meat; your farm can help. Our allies need eggs; your farm can help. What we have here are these posters encouraging American farmers to produce more, whether it be their own produce or more meat or more eggs. During World War II, actually on the plains, because there were so many men who went off to go into uniform – America’s fielding a 13-million-man military by the end of World War II -- that you have labor coming from some unexpected sources. There was actually a small group called the Women’s Land Army, which recruited women in particular, and it would train them with farm personnel as to how to run tractors and such, so that women, farm wives, could take over some of the farm work during World War II. And in some places like Kansas and Nebraska, you had lots of German POWs who would actually be farmed out on occasion with an Army guard to farmers to help make sure that crops got planted and harvests came in the fall.
Victory Gardens
Victory gardens. Here is a case where the American people were in some ways ahead of their government. During World War I, there actually had been a government sponsored victory garden program that came out of the Department of Agriculture. Herbert Hoover was involved in that and, also, the U.S. Food Administration, which actually Hoover was truly in charge of. When World War II comes around, people just fell back into the pattern and, in fact, at first, the U.S. Department of Agriculture wanted nothing to do with victory gardens in World War II until suddenly they realized that suddenly millions of these are being planted. And so then by late 1942 you have the U.S.D.A. finally getting on board and promoting the growth of victory gardens.
And what these are, as I’m sure you’re all aware, are people all around the country, whether they’d be living in Manhattan, Kansas, or Manhattan, New York, being encouraged to find whatever little plot of land they could, whether it -- maybe it’s their window and plant some of their own produce. And the date is a little unclear on this, but by early 1944 -- some data suggests by early ’44 that over a third of all domestic produce consumed in the United States was grown in a victory garden. So victory gardens by the end of the war are playing no small part in American food production.
Loyalty to the Cause
And understand that every single one of these things that you did as an American -- gather scrap, buy war bonds, plant a victory garden -- further cemented your loyalty to the cause. Now, to be fair, during World War II there wasn’t much question about the cause. If there was ever a war that seemed to be worth fighting, this was it. But with every one of these individual actions, Americans can feel more and more connected to the war as opposed to the way some Americans feel today. That is disconnected from Afghanistan, disconnected from Iraq.
Again, an example from advertising art, here we have happy animals who apparently are happy to be slaughtered, because they are helping the war. Again, not opposed to but a similar -- but again, the art styles that dominate World War II posters from ’43 and on come from advertising like this.
Sugar Rationing
It is just for kicks and giggles, you know, a little bit of black humor from time to time. You know, if you are going to be forced to ration your sugar, you might as well have fun with it. So here we have a V sugar ration spoon. The spoon, which you see there in the bottom panel, has a V-shaped hole in it, so when you go into your sugar bowl you will get only maybe one-third of the sugar you were expecting but thus your sugar will last longer.
There were actually directives that came out from the Department of Agriculture during -- by 1943, encouraging customers at restaurants to not ask for coffee refills, to not ask for extra sugar, because all you would be doing would be, in some ways, embarrassing the restaurant owner, because they could not give you any more.
OWI Poster
This poster is a little unusual. It is an OWI poster. Again, Office of War Information that actually was generated outside the OWI by ’44. By ’44, the OWI had been more or less taken over by graphic artists in the advertising world, but this poster just seemed to speak so loudly that the OWI accepted it and sent it out for widespread distribution. Again, this was the notion of keep your mouth shut, loose lips sink ships. If you are a war worker, don’t talk about your work, because, perhaps, that might somehow get back to the Germans and, in particular, the Germans who had U-boats off the coast of -- the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. And here the idea is, my master, this sailor is dead, because someone talked.
War Bonds
War bonds. The sale of war bonds financed a little over 40 percent of World War II. And the buying of bonds was not only important for helping to fund the war, but, again, this notion of tying Americans’ loyalty to the war effort by having them do concrete actions like buying war bonds. And war bonds, of course, were also good for other reasons. They actually were, in fact, in some ways investments. And get this, during World War II, a very strange economic situation develops. Americans have plenty of money, on average. I’ll explain that in a moment, but they have nothing to spend it on, because during World War II, the Depression ends and it ends because of massive federal spending that can now be justified because of World War II.
We got Roosevelt’s New Deal. The new deal spending maxes out at about six billion dollars a year, most of that from WPA [Works Progress Administration]. World War II spending maxes out at about 100 billion dollars a year. So we’ve answered two questions here. Why does the new deal not end the Depression? Not enough spending. Why does World War II end it? Plenty of spending.
The average work week for workers goes up from roughly about 34 hours a week to 43 hours a week. Wages go up by about 25 percent over the duration of World War II. As one Red Cross nurse later told oral historian Studs Terkel, “As long as you didn’t lose a loved one in the war” -- I think that’s a big if, right? – “As long as you didn’t lose someone, World War II”, she said, “was a hell of a good time.” There was disposable income, but you couldn’t buy much. What could you do with it? You could buy bonds, which over their maturation period will ultimately be a pretty good investment for you. So lots of Americans end up -- partially by default, partially because of patriotic motivations -- investing lots of money, and some of that money comes back to help fuel the boom of the early 1950s. And it is World War II that ends the Depression.
Another variation on the theme. The Secretary of the Treasury during World War II is Henry Morgenthau. And Morgenthau was a big advocate from the very beginning that war bond sales should be voluntary, because once you get Americans to voluntarily buy into the war, they are going to buy into the war. That’s what I mean, again, by tangible daily activities committing themselves to American victory in World War II.
Here’s one of those random really sort of ugly scare tactic posters of World War II. There aren’t that many of these, but here’s one that clearly qualifies. Dear God, keep them safe. And by the way, this one is not produced by the OWI. This was produced by Kroger Grocery Company. Lots of private companies, for a variety of reasons, print posters during World War II, encouraging Americans to buy war bonds, as we’ll see in a moment, also, to work harder. In fact, there are more posters produced by private companies in WWII --
MR. JAY ANTLE: -- than all the posters produced by everybody in the states during World War I.
Again, a very simple message here. You back the attack. You support our armed services overseas by buying war bonds.
Here is an ad aimed obviously at a worker. Make every day bond day. And some of you may be aware that during World War II, all sorts of -- not just Hollywood celebrities who were living but also cartoon characters -- sell war bonds. Some of you may have seen the famous clip of Bugs Bunny selling war bonds, including where he actually goes into black face for a short period of time. I won’t sing that song for you the way that Bugs does, but it’s out there on YouTube for those of you who want to look it up. It’s pretty interesting stuff.
For those who could not afford to buy a $25 or $15 bond outright, what you could do would be to collect stamps and then fill up these stamp books and then turn those books in and receive a full bond. This way, people of all income groups of all ages could participate in helping to win the war by buying war bonds. So, war bonds, indeed, really did unify Americans across demographic groups to, in a way, tangibly support the war.
African Americans in Posters
And we have some posters aimed at African Americans. Here we have an individual from the Tuskegee Fighter Squadron that served over the European Theatre of Operations. I’ll say one thing about African Americans in World War II here -- although it’s not reflected in the poster per se, people forget that African Americans during World War II fought what they called a double V campaign, victory against the acts overseas and against racism at home. A lot of the individuals who are going to be active in civil rights groups during the 1950s and ‘60s are going to be World War II veterans who come back from the war with a new sense of themselves, especially having seen the worlds in England, seen France where their skin color was not the first thing people noticed. What people noticed first of all was their uniform. And they will come back also being motivated by what they saw as the end result of racism in Western Europe, mainly the Holocaust, and they’ll be motivated to force change. And so the World War II experience for many black soldiers is for them -- would be for many -- for hundreds and thousands of black soldiers, their entré into the Civil Rights Movement.
Norman Rockwell Posters
Okay. Now, here is four of the most famous posters from World War II, but their stories are odd. And it shows you a bit about this schism in the Office of War Information. Who’s the artist?
AUDIENCE: Norman Rockwell.
MR. JAY ANTLE: Norman Rockwell. You would think the OWI would jump at the chance to have a Norman Rockwell poster. Well, that’s because we now consider Rockwell to be legendary.
The folks who are running the OWI by 1943 found this work to be pretty pedestrian and not very clear, and so they actually rejected Rockwell’s images. These are the “Four Freedom” posters as they are known, because Rockwell is inspired to produce them after hearing Franklin Roosevelt’s famous “Four Freedom” speech. In other words, what are we fighting for? We’re fighting for these freedoms.
Rockwell then, of course, gave them to the Saturday Evening Post, who used them. They were very popular. And the Secretary of the Treasury saw them, and the Treasury Department grabbed these posters and issued them to help sell war bonds.
So here we have, Why are we fighting? Freedom from fear. And, by the way, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasury Department, when they issued their versions of these, we see at the bottom, Buy war bonds, like this one. Actually of the four, this is my favorite. This common man getting up to speak in this fairly, you know, pressurized room it seems. Everyone is turning around and looking at him. This is what America is supposed to be about.
Freedom of worship; buy war bonds. Freedom to eat a big turkey; buy war bonds.
And here we go with that impossibly cute mother and daughter combo again. Again, she is putting stamps into a book, as is the mom, and they are turning these in so they can get war bonds and help support the war.
I throw this one in, because it is a poster that is encouraging Americans to -- in the final drive, to buy victory bonds in ’45. And this particular poster, of course, is designed to encourage Americans to buy victory bonds as a way of commemorating the loss of Franklin Roosevelt, who does not live to see the end of World War II.
Roosevelt’s Image
By the way, there was some controversy during the war itself of actually using Roosevelt’s image, because as some of you may be aware, over the course of World War II, the Democratic majority who were very pro-New Deal, is slowly eroding a bit in Congress, and a lot of the people who become involved in the war production board or even the OWI are pro-business Republicans. And so we get a bit of controversy if you actually used FDR’s image. After FDR’s death, though, for a short period of time, that issue of controversy, of course, no longer really mattered.
Roosevelt and Organized Labor
I’m going to shift topics here a bit and talk about the workplace itself. Franklin Roosevelt is the man who really unites organized labor and the Democratic Party. He does so because he is friendly to organized labor. He certainly recognizes the political opportunities available if he can attract the votes of organized labor. And it’s Roosevelt who, back in the passage of the National Recovery Act wants to make sure that workers’ rights are secure in their ability to organize. So organized labor understands that they have a President who was at least friendly to their interests. This is important, because once World War II begins, the issue of going out on strike is now a very different issue. See, because before World War II, if you go out on strike, it’s a strike. It’s about wages. It’s about working conditions. During World War II, going out on strike is now traitorous, conceivably unpatriotic.
So what the President and representatives of unions like the AFL and also the CIO do -- at this point, those are still two separate organizations. They develop this notion of a period in which there will be no strikes. These unions commit themselves to being strike free for the duration of the national emergency.
They also commit themselves, if management is willing, to form labor and management committees at each major factory. That’s where you had either CIO or AFL representation to help deal with issues that would normally lead ultimately to things like strikes for the duration of the war.
This was a chance that members of organized labors thought to show Americans that they, in fact, were as patriotic as anybody else. I mean, if you think back to the era, those of you who have studied American History, the era of the nineteen teens and twenties, organized labor was sometimes associated with socialism and the Bolsheviks and the Reds. I would say mostly unfairly, unless you remember the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World], a whole other story. But this was a chance for organized labor to show they were patriotic, and the President was more than willing to help them do so.
And not surprisingly, corporate America was more than happy to have workers who weren’t going to go out on strike. They were getting more contracts from the government than they could actually fill. There is a chance now to encourage more productivity and to do so not under the guise of profits, although there were profits to be made to be sure, but under the guise of patriotism and the need to win the war.
Private Company Posters
So lots of posters along these lines that are often times produced by private companies. No more smoke for this guy, because you were smoking in the men’s room. Who’s to blame? Shooting the bull ain’t shooting Nazis. Did you break this milling cutter? It’ll take 80 days to replace, says a very stern Uncle Sam. And, of course, Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum wanted to make money off all those workers who were on assembly lines. Millions working for victory have found chewing was a real help on the job. Wrigley’s will help workers achieve victory and all wear the same uniform.
Here we go. Loose lips might sink ships. If you talk about how fast you helped load the cruiser Exeter, then German spies might hear about it and know that the Exeter is leaving. And there it goes, all because you talked.
I like the one on the right. Hang around girls, we like you. Just hang out in the ladies room smoking and, you know, when you’re not working, we -- the bad guys -- will, of course, win the war. A bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.
Wear it proudly, the badge of a production soldier. If you were a member of a factory that exceeded quota of production, you would get usually a tag or a little badge that said “E” on it for efficiency. The lower right hand one I like, too. It’s kind of hard for you to see, but it’s basically a gentleman sitting back in a recliner saying, if I was in charge, I’d do this, I’d do that.
Don’t give advice. Be a production soldier. You know, get a job and shut up. Again, these are all being produced by individual corporations to be -- that are aimed at their workers.
Thanks for loafing pals, says Hitler, here’s an iron cross for you.
I could actually go on for about an hour with variations on this theme. Set the bad guys on their axis. Isn’t that clever? Right. Keep ‘em firing, keep on working.
If you can’t go across -- join the military -- Come across -- come through and produce. Keep the armed forces fighting. GE produced this poster. Nazi boots on your factory, if you don’t produce. So the threat here now is not about losing your job. The threat here is now about losing your country. That’s a pretty strong motivation for you to make sure that you take that extra hour of overtime.
Recruiting Posters
And, of course, there are plenty of recruiting posters during World War II, lots of them, like this one, trying to stress not only the patriotic nature of joining the military if the nation has an emergency, but in this case this notion of masculinity. Right. You join the military to complete your journey to manhood. And in this case you would join the Navy to make that happen, because The Navy makes men.
Women in World War II Posters
And now we go with another direction to gender. This, of course, may be the most famous poster of World War II, asking women to go to work, taking industrial jobs. This is the Rosie the Riveter. During World War II, somewhere between seven and nine million women fill the jobs that were left behind by men who go to serve during World War II. Understand, though, that while they have -- there are millions of American women that go to the workplace, an industrial workplace. We have this myth out there that women did not work in American factories at all before World War II, which is not true at all.
What happens is that during World War II those numbers increase from roughly 25 percent of the American workforce being female to almost 40 percent, but it’s not that this has never happened before. It’s just that during World War II, American society paid attention and temporarily sanctioned it. That’s the difference.
Soldiers without guns. Lots of posters like this were designed to encourage who served in a variety of roles or in the workplace. Here we have a welder or, in more traditional defined feminine role, as a secretary.
This one, I think is interesting for a variety of reasons. First of all, they apparently forgot to put the wrench in the woman’s hands. But more to the point, who gets to decide if she goes to work? The husband does. I’m proud…My husband wants me to do my part. So the decision in this family, and by implication the families being imagined by the producers of this poster, it is the husband who will decide whether that woman works.
My grandmother can tell this story. She went to work at a ship painting, where they shipped (unintelligible) for a while, for about three months, loved the job. She loved the camaraderie. She loved the money. And her husband, who was a real piece of work, didn’t exactly like her having either and told her to quit, and she did. Eventually there was a divorce and things go from there, but anyway.
During the war itself, most Americans -- and there were actually public opinion polls taken during ’43 and ’44 and early ’45. The average of all those surveys said that 70 percent of Americans who were polled thought that women who went to work during World War II should return home when the war was over and give up their jobs to men who were coming back. And, by the way, the majority, not all, but the majority of the women themselves agreed. Not all, but a majority.
Here’s a little trivia for you, although some of you may know this answer. What was the average age of a Rosie, do you think?
AUDIENCE: Thirty-five.
MR. JAY ANTLE: Yeah. That’s about right, 35 and into the early 40s. Why would that be?
AUDIENCE: Their children are grown.
MR. JAY ANTLE: Exactly right. Yeah. An issue of children.
This is not an era in which you have lots of childcare facilities. Although, during the duration of the war, some companies like Boeing down in Wichita figures this out and they begin to open childcare operations. But women who could easily go back to work could go to work like this when they didn’t have childcare responsibilities. Their children had already -- were either -- had already left the home or old enough to take care of themselves.
And so we have this kind of notion out there that Rosies were these good looking twenty-somethings who goes out there and really has a good time. That’s not quite the reality for most of the women who worked in wartime factories.
There were lots of pictures like this. And, again, this one comes from an advertisement, not a poster. From Alice to Eddie to Adolph. Alice is helping to build the bomber, Eddie, her boyfriend, fiancé, husband, will fly the bomber who will ultimately end Adolph’s life. So if Alice wants to get Eddie home sooner, what does she do? She gets a war job.
And here’s actually a fun poster that reflects back to the fact that over most of American history, in wars like the American Revolution, the Civil War, you can find examples of women playing terribly important support roles and even occasionally combat roles. It’s a tradition with us, mister.
Before I move on, one last thing about women. There were lots of promotional films during World War II also aimed at women. My favorite was done by Ford Motor Company designed, again, to recruit women. In this film, it showed women working on putting skin on the outside of the B-25 Bomber and the language was really gendered. It was like even the side of a bomber can benefit from a woman’s delicate touch. And my favorite line was, Rivets are the buttons on the side of a bomber.
So even in this age in which woman’s industrial expertise was needed, they were recruited using very traditionally gendered notions of what women could or could not do.
Popular Culture World War II Artifacts
We’re getting toward the end here. So, basically what I have now are just some of the artifacts of popular culture from World War II. If you wanted to show your anger at the axis powers, you just got these special ashtrays. Jam your cigarette butts on this skunk, et cetera, et cetera.
You’ll see, by the way, that motif there in the center is Tojo in this case, the Prime Minister of Japan, holding a dagger with blood on it. There was this real notion that because of the dastardly nature of the attack on Pearl Harbor, that it was a betrayal, that it was not an honest attack; that it was done with treachery. You find that motif throughout the war and indeed a bit of World War I. You had German’s being portrayed all the time on posters of being sort of a sub-human race. In World War II, not so much; but with the Japanese, you do. And you find that example here.
Again, the more anti-Hitler popular culture items, Adolph the pig bank. Save and make him squeal. And there is a pin cushion with Adolph’s tush as your target.
Again, other popular culture of World War II, a doll book celebrating the efforts of the women’s auxiliary ferry command. Lots of coloring books from World War II, like this, you could paint, you could color tanks, whatever the case might be.
You actually still find jewelry in occasional antique stores remembering Pearl Harbor. People would wear these items to commemorate the attack on December 7th of ’41.
Hollywood -- and, again, we’re away from posters now. Here we have -- I think it is supposed to be Greta Garbo.
AUDIENCE: Jean Terry.
MS. JAY ANTLE: Is it Jean Terry? Oh, I’m sorry, Jean Terry. I’m not all that up on my World War II actresses. She’s collecting stamps, although, apparently staring off into nothingness while doing so. Blondie for victory. The timeless glamour, Lauren Bacall, is going to give blood.
Comic books that I actually own -- and I show these to my students and they don’t understand how valuable they are, so I’ve actually stopped handing them to my students.
This is from a company called Timely Comics. Here we have the Human Torch and his sidekick Toro defeating a bunch of Japanese -- of German saboteurs.
Here you can see that anti-Japanese stereotype I was talking about that popped up all the time. The Japanese here are portrayed as squinty-eyed, buck teeth, not looking exactly human. Of interest here also is what is happening up there on the platform. We have an American flyer next to a woman who is wearing the insignia of the government of China, an ally of the United States during World War II against the Japanese. Again, look at the way the Japanese are portrayed.
It’s actually a really good book by a historian named John Dower called War Without Mercy. It argues that in World War II in the pacific between the Japanese and the Americans on both sides was really a race war. On both sides.
Conclusion
Okay. And that then concludes my formal remarks. And have a safe drive home, and I’ll stick around for questions if you have them. And enjoy your snow on Friday.