Wartime Propaganda During World War II

During World War II propaganda was ubiquitous. It consisted of a wide range of carriers including leaflets, radio, television, and most importantly posters. Posters were used based on their appeal: they were colorful, creative, concise, and mentally stimulating. Posters often portrayed the artist's views on the war. They demonstrated the artist concern for the war, their hopes for the war, and reflected the way enemies were envisioned. Posters also show a nations political status: they reflect a nations allies and enemies, how the nation saw itself, and its greatest hopes and fears of the war.

During World War II, propaganda was used for a number of reasons, it not only showed how anyond could be of use to the war efforts, but it also showed that every person could contribute as well. These posters empowered everyone to stand behind their nation's Army, and to continue contributing to the war efforts. The posters showed that everyone is needed, that anyone could make a difference, and some even emphasized certain values to those who are already helping with the war effort.

During World War II propaganda posters where used to influence many peoples value, beliefs and behavior. The use of propaganda had a huge impact on the allied and axis power during this time. Both enemy’s used posters to get support from there government and families back home. Creating these posters encouraged people to save their materials so that most of the weapons could be used during the war. Propaganda it was a smart way to get people to degrade the enemy. Furthermore it was a great financial investment for America and its allies during the war. The poster I will address are what I found to be the most interesting and significant during this time.

Propaganda made a great impact on World War II society. Propaganda was used intently during World War II and was particularly important because it allowed the government to control citizen’s thoughts and beliefs about the war. Propaganda is defined as information or ideas that promote a point of view, group, belief, etc. Usually, it is either misleading or biased in order to portray a desired viewpoint for people to believe. In the war, the government utilized propaganda to make citizens believe that the war was worth fighting for, even though that wasn’t the case. They did so by creating propaganda that advocated for unification, domination of the enemy, and war employment opportunities, to name a few. Maus by Art Spiegelman is a graphic novel

This paper will analyze the WWII era poster published and posted in 1943 by the Office of War Information, titled “1778, 1943 Americans will always fight for liberty.” Like so many propaganda posters of the era, it shows American soldiers and includes the message, “Americans will always fight for liberty.”

Another way this propaganda was very useful was that it targeted specific groups of people such as African Americans. An example of this type of propaganda can be seen in the poster “Colored Man Is No Slacker”. This photo depicts an African American man, and an African American woman holding each other as the man goes off to war. (Pg. 143) As an African American seeing this poster hanging around the town, it would make them consider that if they go out to war people would not think of them as loafers and they would be behind their country. This poster was very successful in brining African Americans into the war effort. Without posters like these, many African Americans would have not volunteered their services to the war, which is why propaganda during World War 1 was so effective.

Army,” also known as “the most famous poster in the world. The timing of the posters release strengthened the chance of military enrollment because of the implanted widespread hatred of the Axis Powers. Originally created for use in World War I, its popularity and effectiveness led to reprinting for World War II. However, this poster, along with several others, was more effective in World War II: in 1940, there were 458,365 military personnel in the United States, but in 1941, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, that number increased by approximately 293 percent with 1,801,101 personnel. Whereas there were only 4,355,000 American troops by the end of World War I in 1918, there were at least 12,209,238 servicemen by the end of World War II in 1945. Although there were no more casualties on United States soil after Pearl Harbor, the armed forces still exponentially increased afterward, as shown by the statistics above.

There was propaganda produced to deliver these exact messages during the war in every country, however some good examples of this can be seen in the Propaganda Lecture Slides that were presented to us. One poster depicted a German soldier nonchalantly stabbing a baby with his bayonet. While another displayed God descending from heaven to care for what appears to be a wounded soldier. There were also posters used to enforce peer pressure, which can be seen in a poster with some children asking their father, “Daddy what did YOU do during the war?” These posters were effective, and unexpectedly powerful due to the unprecedented use of industrialized media (Lecture). Concludingly, recent media innovations allowed for mass production of the written word and higher literacy rates led to an even greater impact for propaganda. This could also be seen with prominent writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and others who were a part of the British War Propaganda Bureau, otherwise known as Wellington House (Lecture).

“Ads implied that if you bought a war bond your sacrifice was on par with that of the man in the front lines.” (74) The US government and industry played on Americans’ sense of patriotism in order to get them to support the war or buy their products. However, “Advertising had inherent problems as an educational tool. It is by nature emotional, rather than intellectual; it sells feelings rather than ideas.” (73) Government propaganda and business advertising were not the only factors in forming the inaccurate myth of the Second World War. Hollywood made films where “people get blown up with their clothes and fall gracefully to the ground” (100). Through the realism of motion pictures, such as 1998’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and 2001’s ‘Pearl Harbor’, Americans were falsely led to believe in a glorified war.

American propaganda during WWI was used to spread ideas and information for the purpose of helping the American cause, specifically through, songs, posters, pamphlets and leaflets. America joined the Allies forces in 1917 in Europe to fight against the Central Powers. The American government needed something to spark the peoples' interest in the war. The most effective tool the government found and used was propaganda. The American government used propaganda to reach out to the people. The government wanted to reach people of all ages. Similarly, Germany fought back with her own propaganda, by purposely dropping leaflets and pamphlets on the ground to try and convince American soldiers, especially blacks, to join their side. In my opinion

The posters were used to symbolize the will of the government to obtain assistance for the war by molding the public view. Propaganda is a method of communication that normally avoids the intellect and motivates a target group by appealing to their emotions. The posters produced for the home front throughout World War II were created to drive citizens and generate a feeling of patriotism that would transform the United States into an invincible war engine. These posters requested everyone to be a member of the war effort, not by simply taking a gun into action, but in numerous different influential ways. Methods like working in factories, purchasing war bonds, using less so

This essay was written in February 2001 by Anthony Navarro. The title of this is called “A Critical Comparison between Japanese and American propaganda during World War Two. The purpose of this source is to inform students about the means in which propaganda was used in the United States and Japan. The value of this source is that it is an outside source, different from its time. The essay analyzes a summary of what happened during the war with a neutral perspective. A limitation about this source is that this essay was written almost over half a century since the war. Navarro’s ideologies are from an American perspective which can create a one sided standpoint.

The biggest propaganda poster that stands out to me is Rosie the Riveter. This poster can still be seen today. During WWII, the poster was meant to get women to start working. Not many women worked before the was a the poster of the strong, working women made women want to work. The propaganda poster worked because it made woman want to work.

Wartime relations can cause a country to get down as we saw in the United States during Vietnam to a point where a large portion of the public doesn’t support the war. One of the ways countries, like the United States, curb this is by creating propaganda. In World War II, the United States used the propaganda to get the public behind the war effort and to unite the country. This propaganda included posters to advertise,

As already mentioned, the United States readily took part in the propaganda parley of World War II. The threat of subversive Nazi propaganda on U.S. soil caused private citizens to use their contacts to pressure the government into counteracting the “attack on democracy” (Laurie 30-32). This spurred the creation of government organizations such as the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The role of these organizations was to oversee the propaganda released on behalf of the government (Laurie 45). The military naturally became involved in the creation and implementation of propaganda films to promote anti-Nazi feelings across a nation immersed in a global war. Also, the hope was that these films would act as a morale booster necessary in a nation that had just experienced the horrors of Pearl Harbor (Fyne 12).