Forgotten Posters of World War II

Loyal citizens went to work. Factories ran their production lines seven days a week. Everyone realized the first line of defense against Nazi and Japanese aggression was with the "production soldiers" at home.

Every company had a goal: Don’t be absent from work. As one poster noted, the Army calls absence from work "desertion." People were encouraged to keep working hard so the men overseas could come home sooner rather than later.

Even newspaper articles, reduced to posters, made the point. One (from the Louisville Courier-Journal) told the story of a soldier who "died last night." He died alone. Without the pat of a hand or a word of comfort. And when he died, "we died...There’s no getting around that." The story begs a fundamental question, of course: What kind of sacrifice (money and work) can production soldiers at home make to be worthy of his death?

Specific posters communicated specific messages:

• Civilian-soldiers...Don’t let MacArthur down!
  
  
• Come on, you workers.
  
  
• Deliver for D-Day
  
  
• Cut out delays; stay on the job.
  
  
• Don’t be a "casualty on the home front."
  
  
• His life is in your hands.
  
  
• Absence makes the war last longer.
  
  
• Sons overseas dispense what fathers make at home.
  
  
• Get the landing craft into the fight.

No matter how hard people worked, the "boys overseas" needed more.