Powers of Persuasion

Co-Authored With: Alex Deihl

3: Reading Response: Facilitator Assignment

During World War II, the United States Government [U.S.] was fighting two battles. Physically, the U.S. was in Europe fighting to stop the Axis powers. However, the repercussions of this war had a profound impact on domestic life in the states. This introduced the second battle in which the U.S. had to continually remind and encourage citizens to support the war. To achieve this goal, the U.S. introduced multiple propaganda poster campaigns emphasizing key points about why the war was important and what civilians could do to help.

The Powers of Persuasion exhibit is a small collection of some of these posters. In this collection, there are four primary goals repeated over and over again. These goals are women in the workforce, racial unity, conserving resources, and supporting our presence overseas. The last goal is more abstract and generally refers to ensuring that the American public supports the United States being in the war. The other three goals each represent solutions to specific problems the war created.

While all the posters share the goal of motivating the viewer into a specific action, the methods each used to create this motivation varied greatly. There were some posters that used bright colors, smiles, and images of patriotic pride to inspire the viewer. Other posters used darker colors and threatening images to create a fear that sparked action. One such example of this can be seen in how women are depicted in the photos. To “quote” the exhibit, the image of a woman was used in two ways. Firstly, smiling, happy women represented how women joining the workforce was a fantastic way to overcome labor shortages. Posters like “Rosie The Riveter” and “Keep Those Fingers Flying” inspired women to join the workforce without fear of losing their feminity. Contrastingly, women were also used as a target of threats. In “Keep These Hands Off” and “Wanted For Murder”, women are shown in danger of being attacked by Axis powers. Subsequently, these images motivated viewers to join the war effort out of fear of what would happen to the women.

Furthermore, another goal that was depicted through threatening posters was conserving resources. This refers to the ideology that civilians were responsible for saving dwindling resources so that the armed forces could use them. To achieve these goals, propaganda posters would weaponize guilt. Namely, they associated using more resources than necessary with aiding Hitler and negating the sacrifice of American troops. In fact, one poster goes so far as to state that not carpooling is like riding with Hitler. Contrastingly, the goal of racial unity was promoted through positive, inspirational means. The period of World War II was seen as a chance to get “victory over fascism abroad and over racism at home” (Powers, 3). As a result, the U.S. created a campaign of posters that highlighted the success of African Americans and depicted a racially unified workforce. These posters used bright colors and patriotic images like people working under the American flag to support the idea of racial unity and tie it with supporting the war effort.

Lastly, the Four Freedoms poster illustrates how fear and inspiration could be utilized together. Based on the speech by President Roosevelt, this series of posters referenced the Four Freedoms that were vital to American society and the duty of all Americans to protect (Congress Address, 75 – 79). The freedoms of speech, religion, from want, and from need were each given their own poster and painting. Each poster was extremely inspirational and painted a somber image of these freedoms’ importance. However, the phrase “Ours to fight for” creates an underlying threat of what the world would be like if these freedoms were lost.

While viewing these posters, there are two questions that come to mind. The first is “how effective would these posters be today?” and the second is “how do modern-day infographics compare to these posters?”. In response to the first question, these posters would probably not be as effective or well-received today. This is due to the fact that the mindset and beliefs that these posters are based on are now considerably out of date. For example, the idea that a woman needs other people to protect her spans from a mindset that has since become increasingly countered. However, regarding the second question, the art style behind these posters would likely draw significant attention. This mainly reflects how unique and uncommon the poster design would be now. Unfortunately, this same unique style means the posters themselves are less informative than infographics. This would create a limit to how much information each poster passed on.

Word Count: 766

Works Cited

“Powers of Persuasion.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers-of-persuasion.

 “President Franklin Roosevelt’s Annual Message (Four Freedoms) to Congress (1941).” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-franklin-roosevelts-annual-message-to-congress.