In the face of acute wartime labor shortages, women were needed in the defense industries, the civilian service, and even the Armed Forces. The accoutrements of war work-uniforms, tools, and lunch pails-were incorporated into the revised image of the feminine ideal. Rosie the Riveter-the strong, competent woman dressed in overalls and bandanna-was introduced as a symbol of patriotic womanhood. Of all the images of working women during World War II, the image of women in factories predominates. Howard Miller, Produced by Westinghouse for the War Production Co-Ordinating Committee, Records of the War Production Board View in Online Catalog Quotes from official manuals and public leaders articulate how the Government sought to rally public opinion in support of the war's aims quotes from popular songs and sayings attest to the success of the campaign that helped to sustain the war effort throughout the world-shaking events of World War II. It explores the strategies of persuasion as evidenced in the form and content of World War II posters. Posters are the focus of this online exhibit, based on a more extensive exhibit that was presented in the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, from May 1994 to February 1995. The Government launched an aggressive propaganda campaign with clearly articulated goals and strategies to galvanize public support, and it recruited some of the nation's foremost intellectuals, artists, and filmmakers to wage the war on that front.

Persuading the American public became a wartime industry, almost as important as the manufacturing of bullets and planes.

Words, posters, and films waged a constant battle for the hearts and minds of the American citizenry just as surely as military weapons engaged the enemy. Guns, tanks, and bombs were the principal weapons of World War II, but there were other, more subtle forms of warfare as well.

National Archives, Army Recruiting Bureau

Call of war 1942 raise morale