The glory of War

[seal]

An ongoing project at the Colorado State Archives has been to restore old WWII posters and then scan them so they become preserved. There are many great ones and they were often rather BIG (so, I've obviously re-sized them here), but check it out.
Didn't war sound better 60 years ago?



And the lil' lady back home can carry her own bags, imagine that:





Where this kind of male body wasn't gay art



I love how this poster make it sound like WAC (Women Army Corps) are only standing around and watching the soldiers fight, with beautiful troubled movie-star faces!



This one is hilarious! Look down to the right and see the little picture of Hitler, and how you can "Eat to Beat the Devil"



Silly woman, stop bothering me! ("where's the meat?" had such obvious dirty associations for me,haha)



THIS is what the meat is saved for!



And everyone has to buckle down



There are things you can do with your slender little hands! Like this:



And this:



And this:


Also, the army needs CANS:


So they can do THIS:


And THIS:


These guys are not kidding around...


little missy!


Finally good for something!



Colorado did their best


to uphold the picture


A classical War-Fund poster


Veterans must not be forgotten either


Another reminder


And all the War-releif posters to benefit allied or victimized countries, most of them very dramatic!




Often portrayed soldier and child, of any ethnicity




Or just children


Mother & child (I find the visigoth text type on this one pretty ironic!)


Jeez, the poles are on march evidently


And the poor Russian soldier is all alone


This type of aesthetic motif was apparently not invented by the Communists, even though they used it often enough

Comments

[mojodragonfly.livejournal.com]

Dr. Seuss did war propaganda too
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dspolitic/

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Some of those are hilarious! Most of these are pretty dramatic, or hilarious in a campy sort of way, not intended to be satire, heh.

[witchmob.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Thank you for posting these. They are amazing, for so many crazy reasons.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I knooow..yr welcome!

[kejn.livejournal.com]

wonderful! i feel like saving fats for explosives now. :-)

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

That just sounds so...disturbingly organic

[jinxle.livejournal.com]

Wow! Propaganda-tastic! I've come over all 1984'ish.

(and to the lady who's eyes have seen the glory... next time someone shows you their glory, knee him in the nuts!)

Nuts of GLORY

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

ahahahaaa!

[saskatchewan.livejournal.com]

Fantastic. Thanks for posting them!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

you betcha sugarplum!

[aquilinum.livejournal.com]

I adore WWII cultural history. This has absolutely tilted a mixed emotion day to the very bright! Many, many thanks for the time and effort here.

Too bad I don't still have my WWII submarine button icon...

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll make another post, there's more from where this came...

[shipbuilding.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this! Sealie, you are the best.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

most welcome honey!

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

Propaganda tactics are always amazing. Though what's interesting to me is how much more efficient the wartime domestic economy was: taking what is normally waste and turning it into munitions, etc.

And I love the "There's no black market! I promise!" posters. Seriously.

Not to belabor the obvious, but I also love how there's only two non-white guys in the posters: one for the Chinese, and one black dude in the corner of a poster.

Thanks for sharing these! :)

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

The domestic economy aspect hit me too!
What if we could live a little more today, as we did in war-time, we probably wouldn't be in such a mess on some levels.

Yeah, the anti-black market ones are hilarious! And it seems the concept for raising war-money overall in those days was to show blond children/men/women in DANGER. How disturbingly Aryan.

[browniegirl322.livejournal.com]

1. why is that woman pouring hot fat on metal dildos???


2. Some of these are just visually fantastic (i visually love the Greece poster)

3. Hitler as the devil is just....there are no words...


thanks for posting these ivona. i love when you do things like this. they make my day.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

why is that woman pouring hot fat on metal dildos???

ow ow ow, suddenly the phrase Take them to your meat dealer! put me in a very bad place...

[wavebreaker.livejournal.com]

So where's the "Help Iraq" poster?

:-P

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I dunnow, they took it down because...um...Iraq blew up the twin towers?

I keep forgetting.

[wavebreaker.livejournal.com]

Or was it: "Help Iraq get rid of their WMDs!" ?

[somerled.livejournal.com]

Wow. Some things never change!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

brother, some army commercials today bring me RIGHT BACK to when I wasn't born!

[jhvilas.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you put up the "Save waste fats for explosives" poster. It's one of my favorites. I first saw it several years ago, and printed out a small copy to put on my refrigerator. When friends come over and see it, they're always like "WTF?" :)

mmm...fat

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I KNOW!
Many of these are still wonderful, only not in the sense they were intended to be originally.

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Those are awesome. Thanks.

I often wonder if such propaganda would
actually work today, and I think people
would be too jaded for it to be effec-
tive now.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

SOME people would be too jaded.

I actually walked past a guy with a hat that said:
AMERICA - best freedom system in the WORLD - BUT that freedom is not for FREE!

or some shit like that, not that long ago.

I expect he'd be in awe by...um the ..guns. Although, his figure was admittedly too..ehm..coutch-trained to be soldier material ever.

[inertiam.livejournal.com]

Oh, but where's my Rosie? Oh! That Rosie!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

This, young man, sounds like a WWII song or slogan quote that I should know. And yet, while googling it frantically so I'll look informed, I just get inane Rosie O'Donnell quotes!

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

Rosie the Riveter!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Ah YES!
I know her face & arm well, I just didn't connect all the cables to my brainz..(should have google image searched it dammit)

[inertiam.livejournal.com]

Rosie the Riveter

(one of the hottest American Icons, ever, in my opinion)

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

She is HOTT indeed!

[wolfchilde.livejournal.com]

My great grandma was a Rosie. She left a nursing job to work in the shipyards in Oakland building ships. I got to do a very neat interview with her for a high school history project, it was rather awesome.

muscular woman!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

They do sound really awesome, I would be so proud if I had a great grandma like that!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_young_liars/]

why, i had no idea that by simply eating two vegetables a day, i could personally defeat hitler! thanks sealy!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Isn't it freaky! Just wave a Green or yellow Bell Pepper around and yr Nazi-Free.

[jedispice.livejournal.com]

Interesting that some of the posters are atually about recycling... which the USA doesn't seem to remember today. Um, and not many of us others either.

I liked the Save the Fat poster though, hadn't seen it before. Oh, I have downloaded all of them of course. It's interesting to compare them to some of the nazi propaganda posters, the imagery is pretty much the same.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Download all you want jediboi.

[jedispice.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the guy in the Italy poster look like George Dubya BTW?

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Maybe a little, but then again, he could also be said to look a bit like a younger version of Prince Charles..it's that generic face form. Bush don't have a dimple though, nor that kind of hair.